Far Future 5: Five by Five
by The Fink
Summary: Silverhills is rocked by a huge explosion centred on the SGHQ as The Master launches his final plan. Can anything stop him now? [Fifth in the Far Future series third and final part in The Master arc NOW COMPLETE!]
1. Explode

Only going to do this once (and it's complicated), so listen up now y'all: Wes, Jen, Eric, Kimberly, Lucas, Taylor, Alice and anyone else you recognise from PR belongs to BVE. Ben belongs to Ekat. Assorted Silver Guardians and minor characters belong to themselves (thanks again!). Everyone else, including John, Rick, Lexia, Namir, JJ and Gina belongs to me. That which has been borrowed earns me no money. That which is mine may be borrowed, but asking first would be polite.

This is the third and final instalment of The Master arc, it's also the fifth instalment in the Far Future series -- so if you've not read the rest of Far Future (in general) and Quantum Chaos and Time Lost (in particular), you may well be confused.

With extremely grateful thanks to Gamine for patiently picking out the nits and putting up with me working out temporal theory.

~*~

Explode

A thick pall of black, oily smoke hung over the ruins of what had been the SGHQ, shrouding most of the area in semi-haze. Chaos was threatening to break out, as the handful of Guardians who hadn't been in the building massed and milled in front of the building.

Paul Miller, one of the last to arrive on the scene by virtue of having been attending a call at a cross-town business, felt a surge of immediate panic on seeing the sight. His first thought was for Gina. The bomb -- as he'd very quickly noted -- had completely destroyed the reception area of SGHQ. The place where Gina worked. He wanted nothing better than to be frantically digging through the rubble pile, but he had a job to do. Terrified or not, a glance around the gathered few told him he was the only member of the senior staff not to have been in the building when the bomb went off -- and that meant he had to take command of the situation.

The surprising thing -- or maybe it wasn't -- was that those Guardians as weren't inside the building weren't milling about like headless chickens, and he'd so far yet to say a word. They all looked worried -- who wouldn't be? -- but there was no sense of panic. _Guess the training shit Eric put us through really **did** work,_ Paul decided, sending a prayer to wherever -- or whenever -- Eric actually was.

"OK. Listen up, people," he called, bringing every ounce of command he could muster to his voice to keep the fear from showing through. The group came to order. "We know the sitch, we know the drill. Let's get to work." He swallowed, and looked around the group. "Haynes," he continued, picking on one of the people whose names hadn't just mysteriously blanked from his memory, "get a six-man crew to work on that rubble pile. Go carefully -- listen for anyone trapped in the shit heap."

JJ gave a brisk, businesslike nod. Without speaking a word, he picked out five others and got down to work.

"Deslaurier -- get a team together and let's start getting the walking wounded outta here and into the park. Medics..." Paul trailed off and cursed when he didn't see Jackson's face in the crowd. The one time he'd have been grateful to see the...

"Medic here." Of all people, John Myers raised a hand.

Paul blinked. He knew John had been doing field medicine but... No time for that. "OK -- looks like you're on your own for a start, kid," he said. "You up to this?"

John gave a snort that sounded like Eric when you'd just told him the odds of something being successful were longer than the Amazon and more piranha infested to boot. "Don't have a choice."

Paul had no answer to that. "Deslaurier -- set up basic triage in the park. We're gonna need M...Myers over here." He stumbled over John's name, but he had to keep this formal or he'd lose it. Even if it did seem wrong in John's case.

Jenny Deslaurier nodded. "Gotcha, boss." She and her team headed off to start evacuating the walking wounded.

"Reed, Watson, Lear -- you're on evac duty from the rest of the building. There are emergency exits, so people not caught in the blast should be making their way to those. Do not, I repeat do not, go into the building yourselves." All three, Paul noted, were too professional to look insulted at the suggestion they'd do anything so dumb. "We don't have anyone equipped..."

"Yes we do," said a soft voice.

Paul span round and found himself looking at Lexia Collins, who looked absolutely sick with worry, but who was also purposefully tapping the excessively fancy looking watch on her wrist. _Morpher,_ he reminded himself.

"Demolitions expert," she stated. "You need eyes on the inside. I can do that."

She was seventeen, for pity's sake. She was just a kid, who was visibly frightened -- not that Paul could blame her for that. He couldn't... Memories of search and rescue efforts where a morphed Ranger had been the difference between life and death for people filtered through his mind. Damn it. He didn't have a choice.

"OK." He swallowed. God help him if she got hurt. "Reed -- you've got a fourth member of the team. You know the drill."

Mara Reed had been at East Mall, Paul recalled. She knew the drill all right. "Got it boss -- ladies; let's motorvate here." Reed tossed a smile in Lexia's direction. "Welcome to evac duty, kid."

As they disappeared to start their work, Paul turned his attention to the few remaining Guardians. "The rest of you, snap it up. This site needs to be secure. Keep the civilians at a safe distance. SPD should be here soon to help -- but with this virus, who knows in what strength. Let's show 'em what we can do."

Paul felt mentally drained. The hardest thing he'd ever had to do -- and it wasn't finished. Not by a long shot.

"We need a medic over here!" yelled one of JJ's team. "Paul -- you might wanna get over here, too."

Paul answered the summons._ Please let it not be Gina...please let her be OK..._

~*~

It took a long while for the voice to penetrate Lucas' dreams, and even once it had, it took a long while more before he consciously realised that the speaker was trying to wake him up.

"Whasamatter?" he slurred, not even opening his eyes.

"Are you awake?" the voice asked.

Vaguely, Lucas noted the voice was male. "No."

"Well you need to be," the voice retorted.

Lucas managed to crack an eye open, but all he saw was a person-shaped blur. "Why?" his eye slid shut. "It's the middle of the night."

"Yes, it is," said the speaker with the sort of exaggerated patience that suggested the speaker's real patience was rapidly wearing out. "Lucas, you think if this wasn't important I'd be here?"

The head of Covert Operations cracked an eye open again. This time, the person-shaped blur resolved itself into Rob. "What the hell is so important?"

"Hawking and Kerin weren't saying,"

~*~

Noise.

That was the first thing that penetrated Jen's consciousness. Hot on noise's heels, though, was pain. Every single fibre of her body ached so fiercely that for a few moments, she could barely think beyond those two aspects.

Gradually, though, the pain distilled itself into three main areas. Her head, which seemed to have a marching band doing double time practice in it, her back, which just throbbed, and her left ankle felt as if red hot pokers were being rammed through it. Then, as that settled into those three areas, noise began to condense into meaningful sounds. She could hear the shouts of people around her. Someone was screaming. There was a rattle of falling masonry. 

As the last of the visceral realisations sank in, Jen managed her first conscious thought, _Oh my god...the baby..._ There was no pain -- or only the sort of pain that indicated minorish bruises -- from her mid-section, but when she tried to move her hand to feel for any injuries, another area of pain made itself known, this time in her shoulder.

"OK, Jen...you've gotta hold still."

Eric? What was Eric doing here? Wasn't he... A memory fragment drifted into focus. It couldn't be Eric. Eric was a thousand years into the future. Unfortunately, opening eyes she hadn't actually realised were closed just presented her with more proof that, apparently, Eric had turned his hand to medicine.

Wait. Medicine?

"John?" she whispered, and was rewarded with a smile. "What..."

"Shsh," he said. "Talk later." 

_So like his father,_ Jen realised. _Even got the obey-me-or-I'll-kick-your-ass expression down._

"The paramedics will be here for you soon," John continued. "You're going to be OK -- but we need to get you to hospital."

"The baby..." Jen whispered.

"Is fine," John promised, smiling. "And you're going to be fine, too."

"Are...sure?"

"Positive."

Jen could feel herself drifting away again -- which was a blessed relief from the pain. She didn't know what had happened, but whatever it was, it would just have to wait...

~*~

Lucas was still yawning as he walked through the deserted corridors of TFHQ towards his office -- the location for this meeting. Whatever this was about, it had to be urgent, but he couldn't even begin to guess what could be so urgent that it merited a meeting there and then at three o'clock in the morning.

Reaching his office, he found Kerin and Hawking waiting for him. Hawking looked grim-faced while Kerin's countenance had taken on a decidedly ashen cast. Lucas felt the pit of his stomach start to bubble in apprehension. This **couldn't** be anything good.

"Lucas," Hawking began. "I have bad news and I have worse news."

"Well I didn't think this was going to be to tell me everything was rosy," Lucas answered, folding his arms across his chest. "What's happened now?"

"At about one o'clock this morning," Hawking stated, "every single temporal alarm and early warning system set off."

Lucas stared, wide-eyed. "That's not possible."

"On the contrary," said Hawking grimly, "it's perfectly possible."

"But...how? Why?"

"Partially," said Kerin, an oddly sheepish note to his voice, "because Eric Myers is not in the right time period."

Lucas' frowned. He recalled reading a report from Hawking on Eric's unique situation within the time stream, but... "If it was just that, surely the alarms would have started at once."

"As long as Captain Myers was alive in this time period and it was emphatically possible for him to be returned to the right place and time, no," said Hawking. "That's changed." There was a pause. "We've got a temporal ripple set up."

Lucas felt his mouth dry up. One of the major analogies used when teaching the basics of temporal mechanics was to define time as a pond. Dropping a stone into that pond sets up ripples. Depending on how close to the bank you are the ripples take more or less time to reach you. The same thing applied -- at least in theory -- to making temporal changes. _But it's never been demonstrated because no-one's ever been dumb enough to try it..._ "How?"

"Something's happened in 2013," Hawking replied. "At a guess, something very catastrophic. More than that, I can't say."

Lucas thought back to the dossier Namir had shown him the evening before. "I can," he answered in equally grim tones. "It's stage three of The Master's plan."

"To an extent," Hawking continued, "the 'what' doesn't matter so much as stopping and reverting the ripple."

"To do that," Kerin put in, "you, Myers and the rest, need to get to 2013."

~*~

Jenny Deslaurier sat back on her heels and blew a strand of hair out of her face. What sort of madman did this kind of thing? Pausing in her work -- trying to help the less injured and keep them out of harm's way until paramedics could see them -- she looked around.

The small corner of parkland immediately opposite SGHQ was chaos. The walking wounded -- and one or two who weren't quite so 'walking' -- numbered probably somewhere near fifty. All of them confused. Now that they were relatively out of the way, it was her team's task to keep them there -- a little like herding cats, one or two of the least injured were trying to help, which wasn't in the slightest -- then take down names, then -- as the paramedics became available -- see them into medical care.

Across the park, she could see the press-pack -- down in size thanks to this damn virus, but still there in a big enough numbers to be a nuisance -- being kept back by a cordon of SGs and members of SPD, who'd finally arrived. That was probably good -- the last time the press had breached that cordon, she thought Paul was about going to have a shit fit with the reporter.

"Yo! Des!" the shout came from a member of JJ's excavation team. "Got another one for you."

Back to work, then.

~*~

Ven stared at Lucas via the comm. link. "Are you nuts?" she finally managed. "There's no way that Eric's fit for a rough journey. Hell," she added, "it's moot if he'd be fit for a ten year 'hop' right now."

Lucas grimaced. "Ven, we don't have a choice. If we don't get to 2013, there's not going to be a 'here' to leave. Hawking's prognosis is the ripple is going to take a week to reach this century. Seven days is all we have -- and the longer we leave it, the worse the journey's going to be."

Ven closed her eyes. "This could kill him."

"Ven, it could kill all of us. No-one's ever tried travelling through a temporal ripple. We have no way of knowing what effects there are. But if we don't, billions die."

She reopened her eyes. "I don't like it."

"Nor do I."

~*~

Smoke filled the hallway leading up towards reception. It made Lexia's progress slow and painstaking because even with the enhanced view her ranger helmet gave her, she could still see only a bare foot in front of her.

Over the comm., Mara's voice came, steady and calm, "Kid -- how're y'doin'?"

"Hallway seems to be empty," Lexia answered. "I'm about up to conference room one's door." But as she said it, she reached her first casualty. "Scratch that."

"What ya got?" Mara asked.

Lexia crouched beside the unconscious Guardian and pressed her fingers to his throat, seeking a pulse. "Unconscious," she reported.

"Any other signs of injury?"

Lexia looked, but there were no signs of blood or anything else that would indicate the unconscious Guardian was suffering anything other than smoke inhalation. "Nope."

"OK -- kid, ya gotta bring him out to me an' Beck; you OK with that?"

Lexia looked at the Guardian. He was twice her size, and given he was completely out cold, he'd be awkward to move. On the other hand, if she didn't, no-one else would be able to. "Yeah."

"Good kid."

_Up to you, Lex. You can do this._

~*~

Lucas paced his office. Time was ticking by and he still didn't know which of the residents from this time were going to be accompanying Eric, Kim, Wes, Alice and Rick. Part of him said that only those currently serving as Time Force officers should go. Part of him said it was going to be no trip for civilians.

Except that Al, Katie and Namir were hardly civilians. Nor were Rob and Ven.

And Hawking couldn't supply any information as to what they were going to be facing when they got to 2013.

"What ever you're planning," said a voice from the doorway, "count us in."

Lucas span round and found Trip and Nadira standing there. Trip who had been so injured by Hordak's destruction of Jackie Bennett's lab three weeks earlier. Vengeance burned in his eyes. It was an expression completely at odds with the otherwise placid nature of the Xybrian. 

"It's gonna be rough."

"Same as always, then," Trip answered, smiling slightly.

Trip had definitely earned a piece of The Master. So had Al, Katie and Namir. So had Rob and Ven. They'd all be going. "Same as always," he agreed. 

~*~

JJ carefully moved another lump of concrete, handing it to the Guardian behind him, who passed it back to a third Guardian. A human chain moving the rubble with almost exaggerated care. It was slow going. Finding Jen had been a nice breakthrough, but since then, there had been nothing but rubble.

JJ wanted to believe that was because there was no-one else under this.

But if that was true, where were Ben, Taylor and Gina? For that matter, where was Jackson?

He moved another huge chunk of rock, and froze. That was an arm. He'd found someone else. But who?

"Medic!" he yelled.

"Who've you got?" John called back.

"Not sure yet -- but someone."

"Ready when you need me."

"'Kay -- Lynn, Mike; let's get this shit cleared." 

His two helpers immediately stepped up to help clear the area immediately around the person. The remaining three members of the team stepped up to back them up. They worked quickly, with a will, but the more stone they cleared, the more certain JJ became that this effort was going to be in vain. Two minutes' concerted effort had cleared enough away for an ID to be made.

"Shit," Lynn muttered.

JJ felt his heart sink to somewhere around boot-level. "John -- looks like it's Alexander Collins." He pressed his fingers against the Biolab CEO's neck and found no pulse. "And I don't think there's anything you can do."

~*~

The old nightmares were back, with a few new additions. It was one reason Eric was quietly relieved when he felt Ven's hand gently shake him 'awake' -- it meant he could stop pretending he'd been asleep.

"You need to get up," Ven stated quietly.

On the other hand, maybe still pretending to be asleep was a better option. It would mean he wouldn't have to actually face anything yet. "Up?"

"We're going to 2013," Ven answered, her hands gently guiding him up into a sitting position.

The world dipped and swayed -- an unsettling feeling, seeing as he had no visual guide for what was up, down, left and right in the first place -- and for a second or two, he thought he was going to fall. "Uhg."

"OK, gently does it."

"Easy for you to say," Eric bit out, clamping a hand to the edge of the bio-bed. That at least told him where the horizontal was.

"Dizzy?"

Eric wanted to reply with something sarcastic but at that moment, the dizziness collected in the pit of his stomach and only sheer force of will kept his jaw clamped shut against the sudden nausea.

"OK, silly question." There was a clatter, then Eric felt something press against his neck. A moment later and he felt the sting of a hypospray emptying. "That should help."

Whatever it was, it was certainly fast acting. Almost the instant the hypospray was removed from his neck, Eric could feel the dizziness abating -- and with it, the nausea. It was still several minutes before he trusted himself to relax his jaw muscles without the fear of throwing up, though. In that time, he heard Ven bustle around the room, fairly obviously packing things together.

When he was finally sure he wasn't going to lose the contents of his stomach, he asked, "What's going on?"

"Something's come up," said Ven succinctly. "Lucas will explain more when we get to Central City." Eric heard her come nearer. "OK. Kim'll be along in a minute or two -- do you want me to give you privacy while you get dressed and ready?"

And that had to be the most terrifying question. What if the dizziness returned? What if he fell? What if he couldn't do this? What if... "No...stay...please?"

~*~

Mara Reed concentrated on the exit, waiting with Beck Watson for Lexia's return. Lexia hadn't sounded convinced that she **could** manage, but...

"This is Mandi Ohlin, reporting live from a scene of chaos..."

Mara's attention snapped from the door to the speaker. Spinning round, she found herself staring at the News-At-Five presenter, who was presenting a live report just a yard away. How the hell the journalist had got herself -- and her crew -- through the cordon, Mara didn't know, but what she **did** know was the reporter was about to head straight back through the cordon.

"Wait for Lexia," Mara ordered. "I'm gonna deal with..."

"Can you tell me how many people are trapped inside this building?"

Mara found a microphone thrust straight into her face, held by Mandi who was looking expectant. Only the fact that there was also a camera in front of her kept Mara's response printable. "You have roughly one minute to get that out of my face and get yourselves back behind..."

But Mara was destined to never finish that sentence as at that moment, Beck yelped, "Mara!"

Again Mara span round and found that Lexia had reached the exit, burdened by... Mara bit back a groan. _It would be Davis._ He was a new hire -- and had, it seemed, very little in the way of common sense.

"Ho-ly... Jack kill the feed." Before Mara could truly process Mandi's words, the reporter was asking, "Look -- can we help here?"

Mara slowly turned to face the reporter. "What?"

Mandi, for her part, offered a shrug and a faint smile. "It looks like you could use our help far more than Ebert needs a live feed here."

"Besides," Jack put in gruffly, as he set the now dormant camera on the ground, "no offence, ladies, but that guy's twice your size."

Mara could only slowly shake her head in disbelief. "You really wanna help?" Both Mandi and Jack nodded. Mara gave a shrug. "Well we need every pair of hands we can get."

~*~

Kimberly reached the door of the medi-centre in time to hear Ven's question. She smiled faintly, almost positive she knew what Eric's reaction was going to be.

"No...stay...please."

For a second, she wondered if perhaps this was, after all, some sort of replicant. That just wasn't a sentiment Eric would have ever expressed. But it was Eric. Deep in her heart, Kimberly knew it was him in the same way she'd known the clone on trial wasn't. She shivered. He'd changed.

And after years of wishing he'd ask for help more often, Kimberly found herself willing to give everything just to have that stubborn cuss back.

~*~

John felt sick as he watched the paramedics gently lift Taylor's unconscious body into the waiting ambulance. She had lost so much blood, it was going to be touch and go as to whether she would make it. At first, John had thought there was a severed femoral artery. Then he'd almost **hoped** that was the cause. But it wasn't.

She'd lost her baby.

"John -- how're you holding up?"

Dazedly, John blinked and realised that Jackson -- battered and bruised, but otherwise whole -- had finally appeared. All he could manage was, "Huh?"

Gone was Jackson's trademark smile. "OK -- time for a break, John. I think Des could use your help over in the park. I'm here now; le'me take over."

"What if...I can't help them...?" John shivered. "I couldn't...couldn't..."

"You can and you will," said Jackson firmly. "You've already helped Jen and Taylor...yes -- you have," he added when John moved to protest. "She's got a fighting chance. That's more than she'd have without you. Trust me on that."

John felt as if he ought to argue that point, but there was something in Jackson's steady gaze that stopped him and gave him heart. Possibly guessing the thought process, Jackson gave a nod.

"Go, take a break -- just five minutes. Get your head together. Then go help Des with the walking wounded."

John managed a nod. "Yes, boss."

As he started to move away, he heard JJ call, "Medic!" and nearly stopped to answer, except that Jackson beat him to it,

"Here!" the CMO called. Then to John, he added, "I mean it -- get a five minute break."

For the first time, John understood why his father had hired the otherwise irritating Dr Jackson. _Bet you can talk dad into doing shit, too..._

~*~

Lucas looked around the crowded room. It was just past six o'clock in the morning; most of the occupants had only been awake an hour or so, but no-one looked the slightest bit half-asleep. Everyone knew that this was critical.

"Do we know what's happened?" Wes asked.

Hawking shook his head. "The timeline's too unstable for any reliable monitoring. All I can tell you is that whatever it is, it's bad."

"And it's more than likely related to what Namir found at the TOI yesterday," Lucas continued. "Nam -- you want to explain that one?"

"The Master's created a virus," Namir stated, nodding to Lucas. "He's called it Redemption. It's lethal."

"Do we know anything more about it?" Kimberly asked.

"Enough for me to know that if we don't do something about it, it's going to be killing a lot of people," Lucas answered.

"So what's the plan?" Rob wanted to know.

Lucas gave a shrug. "The simplest plans work best: We go to 2013 and we stop this."

"Not quite as simple as that," put in Hawking. "There is the time limit."

"Time limit?" Alice echoed.

"Seven days," said Hawking.

"Then what?" asked Al.

Hawking and Lucas exchanged glances. "Then we, and everything from this time period, wherever and whenever it is, will cease to exist," said Hawking, "and The Master will have won."

~*~

Darkness was starting to fall as Paul finally had an opportunity to snatch a five minute break.

Reinforcements, in the shape of some of the Angel Grove Guardians, headed by Lane Aslett, had arrived, taking some of the pressure off the Silverhills-based Guardians. Some, but not all. Resources were being stretched to the limit. In particular, Lexia was the only person who could do what she was doing -- namely exploring the ruins of the building, looking for people trapped. So far, she'd found six people, but she was tiring -- Mara's last report had been clear on that, and on Lexia's own determination not to quit.

_Just like her mom,_ Paul mused, sipping at some tepid coffee. _But she's going to have to take a break soon._

His own personal worry was over -- Gina was one of the people Lexia had managed to find. She was a little bruised and battered, but otherwise OK -- which Paul was more than grateful for. He just wished some of the other news was as good.

Reports had come back from Silverhills General. Jen, one of the first people to be found, had some fairly major head injuries and an ankle that was going to require surgery just to hold it together. Taylor was in ICU fighting for her life. Major internal injuries and blood loss, combined with a not insignificant head injury meant that the prognosis wasn't good. Mr Collins, the CEO of Biolab had already been killed by a similar combination of injuries. _Kinda hope I don't have to be the person who tells Wes that,_ he found himself thinking. Wes was going to go absolutely ballistic.

Then there were the people who were still missing. Chief amongst those was Ben, but there were still a number of other Guardians who hadn't been found, and so far, Lexia hadn't been able to make it up to the R&D labs to see if that was where Michael Zaskin was.

Gina had at least been able to tell him the day's figures for those who were off sick with this damn virus, so at least he knew how many people he needed to account for. What she didn't have was a complete list of names -- so Paul didn't know **which** thirty-nine Guardians, he just knew that there were, somewhere in the mess that was SGHQ, there were eight more people.

He ran his fingers through his hair and groaned.

Looked like it was going to be a long night.

* * *

_TO BE CONTINUED..._


	2. Dissolve

Dissolve

Ven watched as Kimberly led Eric into the time ship's cabin. He looked truly awful. His balance was still off and his movements were hesitant. She would have put the latter down to being unused to the lack of sight, except that he hadn't been hesitant before the tmazacol had fully struck. This was all kinds of wrong, and there was little Ven could do to fix it. And that fact grated.

"Over here," she indicated, pointing to the pair of seats she was standing beside.

Kimberly nodded and guided Eric over to the seats. Ven didn't miss the relief in Eric's expression when he was finally seated.

"Time travel can induce nausea," Ven continued, filling a hypospray. "Eric, I'm going to give you a mixed shot of sedative and anti-nausea drugs. It's going to be a tough journey..." She trailed off in surprise as Eric meekly nodded. Everything she'd ever been told about him suggested this was the sort of decision he argued about. Where was the fight? Where was the pride? She met Kimberly's gaze, but the other woman could only give a pained shrug. Ven sighed inwardly. Definitely all kinds of wrong.

~*~

Paul looked around and shook his head. Time for him to start making decisions. 

There were still eight people -- Ben Johnson included -- missing who Paul had a responsibility towards.

But he also had a responsibility to the rescuers.

He beckoned Lane Aslett, the Guardian Angel commander over. "How're your guys holding out?"

Lane frowned for a few moments, presumably making the assessment. "We're good. I know your guys..."

"My guys are exhausted," Paul assessed frankly. "They need some rack time, badly."

Lane nodded. "It came at the end of your working day; we've been off because of this quarantine -- we were supposed to be reporting here tomorrow anyway." 

"Sun comes up in six hours' time," Paul decided. "If you can cover the night, we'll be back at three am." 

Lane nodded. "What about your CMO?"

"I'll stay," said Jackson, looming out of the dusk, "Provided John Myers can be back here to take over at three."

Paul tried not to let on how startled he actually was by Jackson's sudden appearance. "There's your answer," he said to Lane. "You've also got some help from SPD and the rest of the Silverhills emergency services, but..."

"They're understaffed," finished Lane wryly. "Gotcha."

Paul gave a nod. "See you in six hours."

~*~

Louis Kerin watched the bustle in the time ship bay and grimaced. Now that things had been laid out for him -- now that he had been shown all the evidence -- he felt a complete and utter fool. He had been thoroughly manipulated by someone and the net result was this: The prospective end of the world.

His fault.

"Whatever you're thinking," said Lucas, folding his arms, "the answer is no."

Kerin blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"It is not your fault," Lucas stated. "Granted, I happen to think you're a first class asshole," Kerin winced, "but whoever The Master actually is, he is a first class manipulator. You've only got to look at the way he got Jackie Bennett demoted to know that."

"Your bedside manner requires work, Kendall," Kerin shot back. He sighed. "But you're quite wrong. It is my fault -- I have to accept some measure of responsibility for events. After all," he concluded wryly, "I was the one who went ahead in digging up data on something that occurred ten years ago."

Kerin waited to see if Lucas had any response to that. He didn't.

Then sparing either of them, Hawking joined them. "How do you want us to play this here?" he asked, looking to Lucas.

Lucas shrugged a little. "Keep it quiet, I guess. Not like it's going to do anyone any good if you release that we're all likely to go pouf in seven days."

"We're not going to go pouf, though," said Kerin. "Or is the reputation you and your department have forged -- of being miracle workers, particularly when your backs are against the wall -- completely false?"

Lucas lifted an eyebrow. "Miracle workers?"

"You've cleared Eric Myers of all charges," said Kerin. "And that was a water-tight case -- I should know, I put it together."

Lucas offered a shrug. "If you only have half the facts..." Kerin waved the objection off. "As for pulling this off -- this may well be a bridge too far. We don't know what we're facing." Lucas sighed. "Though the faith in us is a welcome change."

"Don't get too used to it, Kendall."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Lucas started towards the time ship himself, then stopped. "There is one thing you can do while we're gone."

"Which is?"

"See if you can track down the people who messed with Joshua Carmen's mind. If nothing else, you can have a nice little mental rape conviction against them."

~*~

Alice felt apprehensive, watching the final preparations for take off. What were they going to find in 2013? It was going to be bad, she knew that. But how bad was bad? Were John, Lexia and Jen going to be OK? Everyone else?

Her gaze fell on Eric, who was already firmly strapped into his seat. He was completely out of it. Alice knew that was mostly down to the sedative Ven had given him, but even he was fully awake she knew he wouldn't have looked alert. There was something about this -- about what had happened to him -- that seemed to have taken away something vital from him; something beyond the loss of his sight. She shivered. Between yesterday morning and yesterday evening, he'd changed into a complete stranger. _Maybe getting back to our time will help._ But something told her that would probably be a hope in vain.

"OK?" Rick whispered, giving her hand a squeeze.

Alice smiled faintly. At least this was one thing that was going right. Whatever happened, Rick was with her and he understood. "I will be."

At that moment, Lucas entered the time ship. After a quick look around the cabin, he asked, "Are we ready?"

"Just waiting for you, Lucas," Trip answered. "The autopilot's programmed and ready -- just need your order and we're off."

"OK -- let's get this started. Before anyone's sanity kicks in."

Alice returned Rick's hand squeeze as the time ship's turbines started. _Here we go..._

~*~

An incessant beeping slowly wormed its way into JJ's consciousness and started the slow return to wakefulness. It puzzled him. His alarm clock didn't bleep -- it turned the radio on -- and he didn't own a digital watch. So what the heck was making that noise?

As he gained a little more consciousness, the day's events came back to him -- and so did the fact that he had two houseguests. With Jen in hospital, Lexia hadn't wanted to go home to an empty house, so JJ had offered her a place to crash until they reported back to SGHQ. Then both he and she had been nabbed by Dr Jackson and coerced into force-marching John off for some proper rest, and the easiest option was for John to also crash at his apartment.

So Lexia had taken the bedroom, John the couch while JJ himself had been sprawled spark-out on the living room floor. As he reached this point in his thoughts, he remembered that both John and Lexia possessed devices that were made to look like watches and actually did rather more than that. He was willing to bet that one of those was the source of the noise -- and given it was loud enough to wake him, it was probably John's.

JJ rolled over and sat up. Amazingly, John was still completely fast asleep. _Bet he could sleep through a rock concert..._ JJ crawled across to the couch. "John -- wake up." No response. JJ hadn't really expected there to be one. With a grimace, he crawled over to the coffee table, which had been moved so that he could actually lie on the floor, and picked up the noisy device. _Can't be too hard to figure this out..._

After a moment of squinting, he managed to make out the words 'comm. call' on the screen. Another moment's worth of squinting and he found a 'receive' button. With a shrug, JJ pushed it.

"Jeez! John -- take your time, why don't you!" The voice was tinny, male and unfamiliar, although its owner obviously knew John.

_Rick, I guess..._ Vaguely wondering if this was going to work, JJ answered, "It's not actually John -- he's asleep."

The speaker made a squeak. "Who'm I speaking to?"

"JJ Haynes..."

"JJ?" That voice had to belong to Alice. JJ could recognise the confidence in it -- even if the tiny speakers made it sound barely female. "What's going on?"

JJ sighed. "What isn't. Does this mean you guys are back?"

"Yeah -- there's a whole gang of us at the cove; we need a ride into town, but we couldn't raise SGHQ on the radio net."

"Long story, Alice. How many is a gang?"

"Thirteen -- though Rick and I can get into town another way."

JJ frowned for a second. He had an SUV parked outside -- it was a perk of being one of the registered drivers -- but there was no way he could get eleven people into it. And it did cross his mind to wonder exactly who else had come with Rick and Alice beyond Wes, Kimberly and Eric. "I'm going to have to contact Paul Miller." He sighed. "There's a lot of stuff gone on that you guys need to know about...he's the best person to tell you."

"What about mom?" Rick asked. "What's happened?"

JJ winced. He'd momentarily forgotten Jen's situation. "She's OK -- but...Paul's got the latest news. Lemme talk to him -- and lemme get John awake. We'll be out to the cove within an hour, OK?"

There was a lengthy pause, then Alice said, "OK. Get John to comm. us to let us know you're on the way."

"Will do."

A hand tapped JJ on the shoulder. He jumped and uttered a sort of half yelp.

"JJ?" Alice enquired. "You OK?"

JJ looked round and realised that at some stage during the conversation with Alice, John had finally woken up. "Yeah -- your brother's just scared the living daylights out of me is all."

Alice snorted.

"Tell you what, how 'bout you and he catch up -- I'll go call Paul," JJ added.

"Sounds like a plan." 

Disconcertingly, JJ got the phrase from both John and Alice. Shaking his head, he turned the morpher over to its owner and headed out of the living room. He wasn't entirely surprised to see Lexia appearing from the bedroom, blinking owlishly.

"What's up?" she asked.

"They're back," said JJ succinctly, heading towards his telephone.

"They?" Lexia echoed. "As in..."

JJ nodded. "Yup -- Alice, Rick and John are in there chatting." He was even less surprised to see Lexia rapidly head into the living room, presumably to join the conversation. He sighed. The sooner he called Paul, the better...

~*~

Paul yawned as he pulled his SUV in to the side of the road at the head of the cove beach. He really had hoped to avoid this duty, but JJ could hardly be expected to do it and there was no-one else. That didn't mean it was filling him with any enthusiasm.

Out of the roadside bushes, Alice and Rick appeared. It looked as if they'd been watching for the SUV's arrival.

"Commander Miller," Alice called as Paul climbed out of his SUV.

"Not at half past one in the morning," Paul objected. "It's Paul." He glanced over his shoulder as he heard JJ's SUV arrive. "And here's JJ." A moment later and JJ himself had joined them. "So where're we going?"

"Down onto the beach," said Rick. "It's where the time ship landed."

"Lead the way, then," said Paul.

"How're we going to do this?" JJ asked.

"There's thirteen of us in total," said Alice. "But Rick and I can 'port to wherever we're going."

  
"So can Namir," Rick added.

"Namir?" echoed JJ. "Who's Namir?"

"Long story," said Alice. "That leaves ten."

"Five each, then," said Paul. "That works nicely." He looked at JJ. "Back to your place?"

"Lexia and John were gonna put coffee on," said JJ nodding.

"Why not SGHQ?" Rick asked. "Surely there'd be more room."

"I'll tell you in a second," Paul promised. _This is not gonna be fun._

Rick didn't look entirely satisfied by that, but he left it for now, particularly seeing as they rounded a corner and finally arrived on the beach. There was the time ship -- at least, Paul presumed that was what it was. 

"OK, JJ -- can you explain to everyone else?" Paul asked. "I'll talk to Rick and Wes."

"What about Eric?"

"Eric's not in a position to hear anything right now," said Alice quietly. Paul winced at that. "He's...not in great shape," Paul could hear the understatement in Alice's words, "and the journey here was rough."

Paul sighed. "OK -- we can explain to Eric later. JJ?"

"Got it. Alice..."

Paul watched for a second as JJ and Alice disappeared into the ship. A moment or two later and Wes appeared, in the lighted doorway. Paul waved him over.

"Paul -- good to see you," Wes greeted, smiling.

"And you," Paul answered, but he couldn't match the smile. Not with what he had to tell Wes.

Wes' smile faded. "What's going on?"

Paul took a deep breath. "At approximately four-fifteen this afternoon, there was an explosion at SGHQ. Too soon, really, to say what it was -- though I think everyone realises it was almost certainly a bomb. It ripped through the whole front of the building, turning reception and the offices above into nothing more than a pile of rubble and doing a lot of damage elsewhere." Paul paused a moment, hunting for the right words for the next piece. "There were people in both reception and the offices."

"Jen..." Wes whispered, his face taking on an almost grey tone in the moonlight.

"Jen is going to be fine," Paul answered, glad he had this particular piece of news. "A little banged up," that was an understatement, "but she's going to be absolutely fine, and so is the baby." He could see the tension bleeding from Wes' shoulders at the news as both Wes and Rick looked understandably relieved.

"Who else..." Rick began.

"Is Gina OK?" Wes asked, cutting his son off.

Paul did manage a smile at that. "For a wonder, she was actually in her office at the back of the building so apart from some bruises from being thrown off her feet, she's OK."

Wes nodded. "Good." There was a pause. "Who else was caught in the blast?"

Paul felt his smile evaporate. "We still don't know the full extent," he said. "But there are two more definite casualties from SGHQ beyond the unfortunates who happened to be passing the place when the bomb went off." Wes gave an impatient nod, presumably guessing that Paul was stalling. "Taylor Earhardt is in ICU with assorted internal injuries. She...has lost her baby."

Wes swore softly. "Does Ben know?"

Paul shook his head. "We haven't found Ben yet."

Wes swore again. "So who is the other person you've found?"

Paul swallowed. "It was your father...I...I'm so sorry, Wes."

There was a long, long moment of silence. Paul could practically see the blood draining from Wes' face. "You..." Wes swallowed, hard. "He's dead. Isn't he?"

Paul nodded. "I'm afraid so. I'm sorry." Two of the weakest, most ineffective words in the English language, they were all Paul had. 

* * *

_TO BE CONTINUED..._


	3. Split

Split

"John?"

John, who had been rummaging through JJ's cupboards vainly hunting for mugs, looked up at Lexia's voice. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, an odd expression on her face. Seeing she had his attention, she continued,

"Can I talk to you?"

It was on the tip of John's tongue to give the response his father normally did when asked questions along those lines, but something about the way Lexia was looking at him curbed the impulse. "Of course."

There was a long pause. Lexia looked down at her fingers, which she was lacing together and separating, as though they might have been the most fascinating things in the world. Softly, she finally managed, "Grandfather's dead, isn't he?"

The information hadn't officially been released, John knew that. He also knew that most of the Guardians, barring those who'd actually found Alexander Collins, hadn't been told. That was mostly because Paul had yet to have a chance to tell them but also because he didn't want to run the risk of it getting into the press before they'd had a chance to tell Wes. But, like most of these things, it looked as if it was creeping through the grapevine anyway. He sighed. "Yeah."

Lexia nodded, almost convulsively. "I thought so." There was a pause. "Am I supposed to be crying?"

John didn't know how to answer that question. That didn't seem to matter, though, because with the question finally voiced, Lexia's next words tumbled out,

"It's the first time someone I know's died...and I feel weird. I don't know what to say...do... What'm I supposed to be feeling?"

"I don't know," John admitted.

Lexia didn't seem to hear him. "Shouldn't I be more upset? I...mean he is...was my grandfather...but I can't cry...not for me...I...I mean...I didn't really know him. He...he was nice and everything...but I didn't know him. And now I won't know him...maybe I could cry for that?"

John could hear the thread of hysteria building in Lexia's voice. He started to stand up.

"But...for dad...he knew him. I could cry for that...but should I? I don't..." A sob caught her breath. "I don't..."

John wrapped his arms around her as the tears began to fall.

"I don't understand."

John hugged her close. "It's going to be all right, Lex," he murmured, hoping that what he was doing was helping. "It takes time, is all."

"But it doesn't stop...we have to keep going...how can we keep going?"

"Because you're not alone." He gently stroked her head. "You've got your family and you've got your friends...you've even got me." John added the last part in the hopes of raising a little piece of humour.

It worked. Lexia gave a hiccup. "You are a friend," she pointed out.

"Whatever you need me to be...to do...I'll do it," he promised softly.

Lexia shifted in his arms and looked up, her eyes still full of unshed tears. "Hold me?"

John nodded. "Of course."

~*~

Al stared out of the window of the SUV, his mind occupied by the news the Silver Guardian -- JJ, he thought the younger man had said -- had given them. His own family history stated Alexander Collins had died, peacefully, in his sleep at a ripe old age of ninety-five -- so this represented quite a change from the original timeline and Al wasn't sure what impact that would ultimately have on the future. It had to have some impact, though.

"OK?" Katie asked. Al just lifted an eyebrow. "Right, silly question."

"Turning events over in my mind," Al answered. "Wondering even if we succeed, what will we go back to."

"As cruel and hard as it sounds," said Lucas, not without sympathy, "one death isn't going to have too much effect."

Al snorted softly. "Don't bet on it, Lucas -- don't forget whose family we're talking about here."

Katie blinked. "Lucas knows?"

"Apparently," said Al dryly, "he's known all along." 

Rob and Ven, who were the other occupants in the SUV, both snorted with what sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter.

From the driver's seat, JJ called back, "Is this something I should pretend I didn't hear?"

"Probably for the best," Lucas agreed. "Though," he added to Al, "something tells me it's going to come out sooner rather than later."

"Not if I can help it," Al muttered.

"But will you be able to?" Lucas retorted. "Eric's going to know you. Jen probably will, too, given the history..."

"And Alice is on to you," Rob finished, sounding somewhat amused. "She just hasn't had the chance to call you on it."

Al groaned.

Katie gave his shoulders a squeeze -- the most comforting gesture she could manage in the limited space. "It'll be OK."

Al wished he could be so certain.

~*~

Alice watched as Paul's SUV pulled away. Getting Eric into it had been a task all its own. He was still semi-conscious from the sedative and thoroughly disoriented, but the worst of it was the meek way in which he accepted being essentially manhandled into the SUV. She shivered.

Turning back to the time ship, she saw Rick, standing on the exit ramp. Though she couldn't see his expression clearly, the slump to his shoulders and the way his head was bowed suggested, he was only one step away from breaking down.

"They're away OK?" he asked softly.

Alice nodded, heading back towards the ship. "Com...Paul's gonna take them to JJ's via home -- Mom thinks dad'll be better off sleeping off whatever it was Ven gave him."

"That..." Rick swallowed. "That makes sense."

Alice reached the ramp and stopped. "Do you want to talk about it?" she offered.

Rick dashed a hand across his eyes and swallowed again. "No...maybe in a while...when I've got my head round it."

"The offer's got no expiration on it." Alice smiled faintly. "Whenever you need me."

Rick managed a watery smile. "Thanks." He sighed. "How...how did m'dad seem to you?"

Alice frowned at the question. "I...quiet. I guess." She paused. "You're worried about him?"

Rick gave a deep sigh. "I don't know...yeah. A bit." Then he shook his head. "This is dumb -- I'm sorry."

"No, it's not dumb," Alice said. "What's wrong?"

Rick shrugged. "It's nothing."

"What's wrong?" Alice repeated, gently wrapping her arms around him. "I'm not trying to push, but...if you think there's something up...?"

Rick gave a shrug. "D'you ever have this feeling that someone's just changed the rules on you?"

"What d'you mean?"

"That's just it. I don't know...I just...something's different." Rick rested his head against her shoulder for a moment. "Something more than grandpa being dead and mom being really hurt."

"As different as in a replicant?"

Rick actually managed a chuckle at that as he moved to look up. "No -- not that different. Just..." He shrugged. "Different. I don't know. Not even sure if I'm making sense."

"You are," Alice promised. It was her turn to sigh. "I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on things."

"Is that enough?"

"It's the best we've got."

From behind them came a polite cough. "Um, guys?" Namir sounded slightly sheepish for interrupting. "The time ship's locked down -- we can go now."

Alice offered the Blue Ranger a smile. "OK." She looked at Rick. "Ready?"

He nodded. "Yeah -- let's go see what sort of a mess my sister and your brother have made of making coffee."

Alice managed a chuckle as she pushed up her sleeve to free her morpher. "John actually makes pretty good coffee," she said. "Beats the hell out of mine, at any rate."

"So there **is** something you can't do!" said Namir with a grin.

Alice tucked her arm though Namir's. "Oh yeah -- a few things." She linked arms with Rick too. "Set?" Both nodded. "OK -- then here we go." Alice pushed the teleport button on her morpher and the cove was devoid of life once more.

~*~

Kimberly watched Wes from beneath her eyelashes. She knew he had been given a tremendous shock by Paul's words -- JJ's explanation certainly had been -- and she could only imagine how Wes felt, hearing that his father was dead and his wife seriously injured. And yet... There was something definitely wrong with the way Wes was reacting.

Or rather, the way he wasn't reacting.

Rick had been visibly upset by the news, but Wes -- apart from a certain tightness to his expression that hadn't been there before -- appeared much the same as he had when they'd left 3013: Grim and determined. She sighed. It couldn't conceivably mean anything good, but she also wasn't the best placed person to call Wes on it. Besides, there were more pressing issues.

Kimberly sighed. _What a mess._

~*~

John stifled a yawn as he crossed the grass towards SGHQ which, under the combination of arc lighting and the onset of dawn, looked even more of a mess than it had done the previous evening. The rest of the group were gathered in JJ's living room, debating what to do, but for John, that was easy. He'd promised Jackson he'd be back at three o'clock so that the older man could get some rest, and that was what he was here to do.

_Ali can tell me later what I'm supposed to be doing._

The only thing that had made him hesitate in leaving was Lexia's mental state, but with Rick, her father, JJ and everyone else, John was fairly sure she'd be all right.

"You're early," said Jackson, as John neared him. "You did get some rest?"

John managed a faint smile. "Some," he agreed.

"Hm." Jackson frowned, then yawned widely. "Much as I would like to order you back for more, I'm in no shape to." Then the doctor frowned. "Where's Commander Miller?"

"Going to be a little late," said John. "But some reinforcements have arrived."

At that, Jackson's eyebrows shot up. "Arrived? From where?" Before John could work out how to answer that, Jackson added, "Or shouldn't I ask?"

John managed a wry laugh. "I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you." 

Jackson merely shook his head and gave a shrug. "I'll take all the good news we have right now."

John sobered. "Have there...?"

"We haven't found anyone else," said Jackson, answering the half-voiced question. "The rubble is almost cleared and I don't think there's anyone else left in..."

"Medic!" The cry went up from those working on the rubble pile.

John gave Jackson a wry smile. "Famous last words."

~*~

Michael Zaskin groaned as he came round. He remembered being in his lab, working on some research notes. There was an explosion and then... Blank. He wanted to say that something had hit him on the head, but that didn't seem right. Not for the way he was currently feeling. His head hurt, true, but it reminded him more of a hangover than of something having hit him. Then there was the nasty, chemical taste in his mouth.

Kidnapping and drugging -- not necessarily in that order -- seemed like the most obvious cause. But who the hell would want to kidnap a research scientist?

Opening his eyes, he was only mildly surprised to realise that wherever he was, it was pitch dark. He guessed, from the ambient sounds he could hear -- the sound of his own breathing, mainly -- that wherever it was, it wasn't a particularly big cell, but more than that, he couldn't say.

"Ah, Dr Zaskin. So good of you to join me."

The disembodied voice was irritatingly familiar. Zaskin frowned. "I don't recall being given a choice."

"Very true," agreed the voice. "You weren't." There was a chuckle. "But you're here now -- and believe me, I plan on your being very useful."

"You obviously don't know me very well," Zaskin shot back. "If you think you can intimidate me, you're very, very wrong."

But the only response to that was more laughter.

~*~

JJ was still feeling shell-shocked as the last of the elders left his living room.

"Quit it, JJ," Alice warned. "Trust me, you're a part of this."

"It's not that I don't believe you," JJ answered, "I'm just... I'm not a Ranger; I'm just an SG grunt."

"You are now," she said and tossed him something.

Rick gave a chuckle. "Be careful what you wish for."

JJ turned the object over in his hands, and nearly dropped it in shock. A morpher? "What the hell?"

"Welcome to the Rangers," said the ever-smiling youth who'd been introduced as Namir. His smile widened more. "Guess I'm not the newbie any more!"

"Huh?"

Lexia shook her head. "Guys -- be fair a second."

"Not sure we have time to be fair, Lex," Alice pointed out.

"The least you can do is actually explain," Lexia retorted. To JJ, she said, "What Alice has given you is the sixth morpher of the set. She thinks -- and I don't think anyone's disagreeing," at that, Rick and Namir both shook their heads, "that you're the best person to use it."

"But...what about...?"

Before JJ could finish his sentence, though, John appeared in a haze of teleportation sparkles.

"Mom told me what's going on," he said. "Have you done it yet, Ali?"

"Just finished," Alice answered.

JJ looked between the siblings. "Huh?"

Lexia managed a grin. "John suggested you."

**That** little tidbit took away what was left of JJ's self-possession, given he'd been fairly sure that John didn't actually like him. John, for his part gave a faint smile and a nod.

"So where do we start?" Namir asked.

Alice looked around at the group. "Well, for lack of a better place to start, the Northland Collective site is where Frax had us."

"You want me to drive us there?" JJ asked.

Alice chuckled. "One, I think your SUV was commandeered when the Olds left; two, we have a much better mode of transport."

~*~

Trip followed Wes' lead through the Biolab research department. At not much after four o'clock in the morning, the place was deserted -- which suited them nicely.

"If I know the way dad thinks...thought," Wes corrected himself absently, "he's probably turned the whole research department over to this, so..." He tried a lab door and found it unlocked. "Any of the labs will have the current data. C'mon."

Trip glanced at Nadira, who was frowning. "OK?" he asked softly.

"It just feels weird to be here," Nadira answered. "This was where everything changed for me."

Trip smiled faintly and gave her hand a squeeze. "Long time ago."

"True."

Wes, meanwhile, had punched up the data currently held on the system. "OK -- that's what we've got. Is there anything else you need, Trip?"

Trip took up the seat immediately in front of the computer terminal. "Have you got the data Namir found?"

"Right here," said Nadira, holding out a dossier.

"All right." Trip paused and looked up at Wes. "Coffee?" he suggested hopefully.

Wes smiled. "Sure -- I'll see if I can rustle some up."

"Thanks." Trip looked back at the screen. _Time to get to work..._

* * *

_TO BE CONTINUED..._


	4. Fade

Fade

Ven had learned a long time ago that the fastest way to blend into the background in a hospital was to wear a white coat and carry a clipboard. It was a trick she used now in Silverhills' main hospital as she headed for Jen's room. Even though it was barely five o'clock in the morning, she didn't rate a second glance.

The plan was for her to assess Jen's condition, while clueing Jen into the present situation, heal as much of it as she could surreptitiously, then later in the day, Jen could be discharged. The doctor in Ven was inclined to balk at the whole plan -- from the injuries Paul had told her about, the best place for Jen was probably hospital. The trouble was, the situation warranted as many hands to the task as possible, and then there was the small matter of Wes.

Ven had seen enough of Wes' reaction to his father's death to judge that he needed Jen even more than they needed her to thwart The Master.

She reached Jen's room and entered. As befitted a head injury victim of this time period, Jen wasn't asleep, though she did look groggy and, presumably as her eyes fell on Ven, puzzled.

"You're not the doctor," Jen finally said.

Ven's mouth quirked up in a small smile. "I'm **a** doctor, if it helps."

"Who are you?"

"Ven Evore," Ven answered, closing the door behind her. "I don't think we met before Ransik's escape to 2001 -- I'm an old friend of Rob Logan and Alex Collins."

Jen's eyes widened. "You're... Does that mean...?"

Ven nodded. "We're all back -- but that's about as good as the news gets..."

~*~

Kimberly felt a certain amount of trepidation as she led Al into the house. There was no reason for her nerves. Ven had said that Eric would sleep naturally and be waking around about now.

"I'll wait down here," said Al.

And for one insane second, Kimberly was tempted to say no and beg Al to come with her. _This is nuts, Kim!_ she admonished herself as she headed up the stairs. _Eric is probably still snoring like a...a...hibernating bear._

But as she reached the top of the stairs, she heard something that definitely wasn't snoring. It was just a quiet, gasping sound and it made Kimberly's blood run cold. The last time...the only previous time she'd ever heard it, Eric had been in the middle of the sort of nightmare that was more appropriately called a terror.

Quickening her pace, she entered the bedroom expecting to see Eric rigid on the bed, but he wasn't. Instead, he'd somehow managed to huddle himself into the far corner of the room, just below the windows. Kimberly started forward, intending to bring Eric out of the nightmare, when she heard him make a soft, keening cry.

And then he started to thrash.

~*~

"What a dump!" Namir muttered as he poked through the wreckage of the Northlands Collective Business Park.

"It wasn't that great a place **before** Lexia blew it up," John pointed out.

Namir chuckled. "Why do the bad guys always pick really tacky hide outs?"

"Because there's fewer people around to spot them doing odd stuff," JJ contributed. Then he shook his head. "Someone let me down lightly when I wake up?"

"Huh?" Namir looked around, puzzled.

JJ gestured at the ruins. "Until an hour ago, I only knew one way to get from point A to point B without using a vehicle, and that was by walking."

John gave a grin. "It does take a bit of getting used to."

Namir shrugged. Although he hadn't used the teleport function in his own century, that had more to do with the fact that places like the TOI had null-teleportation devices than any hesitation to use it. "It's kinda common where I come from."

"Have you guys found anything yet?" Alice's voice sounded loudly, if tinnily, from the speakers of all three morphers. She, Rick and Lexia were searching through another section of the site.

"Nothing so far," John answered.

"Just lots and lots and lots of rubble and garbage," put in Namir.

"What about the warehouse that, ah..." JJ hunted for the name. "Mirracon -- him. What about the warehouse he used?"

"That's clear," Rick answered. "While certain people were running around, having fun with Leprechauns, **some** of us were actually here and watching Eric, mom and dad tear that place apart for clues."

Namir saw John wince and guessed the barb Rick had tossed was aimed at the black ranger. "If dad did that, you're probably right there's nothing left to find." John sighed. "But we ought to check it out anyway...unless anyone has any better suggestions?"

There was a pause. Finally, Alice came back with, "Worth a shot, Jonno. You guys are nearer there than we are, so if you finish up and head there, we'll meet you."

"You got it, Ali."

~*~

Kimberly found herself paralysed by the scene unfolding. Part of her knew that she needed to do something to help Eric, but the rest of her was frozen in place, terrified and unsure as to exactly what she could do to help.

A second, keening moan, broke through the paralysis and she darted forwards. Come hell or high water, she was going to break through this awful dream -- seizure? -- and bring Eric back to the here and now. But she very quickly found that, unlike the first -- only other -- time she'd come upon Eric in the midst of a nightmare, she wasn't going to be able to get close enough to shake him awake. His arms were flailing like a prize fighter's, and as much as she wanted to bring him out of this, Kimberly knew he'd never forgive himself if he hurt her. He very nearly **hadn't** forgiven himself for what happened that last time.

So instead, she was reduced to getting as close as she could, and saying, "Eric, wake up -- hon, it's just a dream..."

"I hurt her..." he muttered rapidly. "I hurt her..."

"You haven't hurt anyone, hon," Kimberly promised. "Come back to me...please..."

"Alice's hurt...I hurt her...killed her..."

Hearing Alice's name was a shock, and if that was a shock, hearing Eric suggest he'd killed her was much worse. There was a split second when Kimberly found herself wondering if what he was saying was true. Then reason reasserted itself -- whatever else had or had not happened, she **knew** Alice was Alice and not some replicant. Whatever this was, it was something that The Master had done to Eric. "Hon -- you haven't hurt Alice, she's OK."

"I killed her...it's my fault..."

Nothing she was saying seemed to be getting through to him. In mounting desperation, Kimberly took an incautious step forwards, only to be struck -- albeit not hard -- on the shin as Eric kicked out.

_Damn..._ "Honey, whatever it is, you didn't do it. It is not your fault."

"It's my fault..." The words trailed off into another keening moan, leaving Kimberly at a loss. Talking wasn't getting her anywhere, yet she couldn't get close enough to do anything else.

~*~

The light coming on startled Zaskin more than a little. The sudden brightness left him all but blind as the door of his cell opened -- doubtless his captor was relying on that to prevent the scientist from escaping, given that Zaskin wasn't bound in any way.

"It's time for you to start working, Doctor," said a voice from the doorway.

Zaskin felt a frisson of recognition travel the length of his spine. He **knew** the voice. Looking round, though, all he could make out was a person-shaped blur, which gave nothing away as far as confirming his captor's identity. "Whatever it is you want me to do, I won't do it."

The person-shaped blur laughed. "Oh, you will do it -- the history banks show you did." Hands seized Zaskin, hauling him to his feet. "Now, move."

~*~

Just as Kimberly was beginning to wonder if she wasn't going to have to get in touch with Ven and get the doctor here, a new player in the drama walked onto the stage. A large, disreputable-looking, patchwork-coated tom cat. He wasn't an official member of the Myers household -- point of fact, he was a neighbourhood stray -- and if Kimberly had final say in the matter, he wouldn't be an unofficial member of the household either. Except that she was consistently out voted, three to one.

How the creature had got into the house was a mystery to Kimberly; it was certainly the last thing she wanted anywhere near Eric in his present state. As much as she disliked the cat -- Kata Eric had jokingly called it, to the delight of the then seven year old John -- she had no wish to see it get hurt, and she suspected that if one of Eric's flailing limbs should catch it, it would fight back.

"Oh no you don't..." Kimberly murmured, making to stop Kata from getting any closer.

The cat was quicker. Despite its size, it shot through the minuscule gap available. Then, before Kimberly could do anything to adjust, it calmly sauntered up to Eric's prone form, gave Eric a long, measured look and sedately put its paws onto his thigh.

Kimberly wasn't sure what to expect next, except she had a vague feeling of impending disaster. The cat would stick its claws in, or Eric would catch it with a fist, or... The cat could actually climb up onto Eric's lap, turn around a few times and curl up.

Kimberly blinked. After the assorted weirdness she'd seen and lived through in her life, she had thought she'd more or less lost the capacity to be genuinely surprised by something, but watching the cat begin to purr like a badly tuned car engine -- and more to the point, watching Eric's struggles calm -- was too much for her to actively grasp. It was just too weird.

"Huh?"

The soft exclamation drew Kimberly out of her stupor. She realised that Eric was now, finally, back and with it. "Honey?"

"Kim? What...?" Eric frowned, one hand now resting on the still purring cat. "What's going on?"

Kimberly chewed her lip. "You...don't remember?"

A careful shake of the head answered that. "Where am I? And...why is Kata sitting on me?"

~*~

Vaguely, Ben wondered why it was his head felt as if a marching band had started using it for a practice ground. Part of him wanted to wonder where the heck he was and what on earth had happened, but the headache was making that all but impossible.

"Ben?"

The voice was soft and concerned enough that Ben managed to find the energy to open his eyes a fraction to see who the speaker was. Unfortunately, all he could see was bright, harsh lighting, which set his head pounding even harder.

"Ben, it's Jenny Deslaurier," the voice continued.

It seemed to take forever for the name to actually mean something to him. Finally he placed it -- she was a Silver Guardian; Ian Foster's second in command. What was she doing here?

"They asked me to sit with you -- tell you what happened."

Oh good -- there was a reason why he felt like three-day-old crap. That was comforting.

"There was an explosion at SGHQ yesterday afternoon...you were caught in the rubble."

Dimly, Ben felt a flash of recognition at that. He **did** have some memory of that happening. A slow frown began to form. Wasn't there someone else who'd been with him?

"The doc'll be in shortly to give you a once over, but they've told me that -- barring some cracked ribs and concussion -- you're OK."

Something about her tone told Ben there were other people worse off than that. The long pause that followed told Ben Jenny was having difficulty coming up with the words to give him the bad news.

And that was when the memory of who else had been in the SGHQ reception area with him fully surfaced. Taylor had been leaving early to go to a doctor's appointment.

Headache or no, Ben forced his eyes open. Jenny's expression confirmed his fears. "What's happened to Taylor?" he whispered.

~*~

Led by a now inordinately proud looking Kata, Kimberly helped Eric down the stairs. She was still hoping that Eric would shake off her help -- or at least grouse about it -- but he didn't. He'd been meekly compliant as she'd helped him get washed and dressed, which she tried to put that down to the episode he'd suffered, but he remembered nothing of it. He didn't even remember getting out of bed.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Al appeared from the living room where, presumably, he'd been waiting.

"I figured it was your cat," he said, inclining his head in the direction of the cocky Kata. "It was sitting on the windowsill, so I let it in."

Kimberly smiled wanly, recalling events of the morning so far. "He is now."

"Who's that?" Eric asked softly.

Al's eyes widened at the question.

Kimberly sighed. It was just another sign of there being something wrong. "It's Al Drake -- Katie's husband."

"Oh." It was non-committal. Just a trace of a frown on Eric's face momentarily -- as if the answer had actually surprised him -- then that faded and his expression returned to something more passive.

"OK -- let's get you sitting down; then I can do some breakfast...you want some coffee?"

"Sure." But Eric's tone was disinterested.

Kimberly sighed. It was going to be a long morning.

~*~

Dizzily, Ian Foster tried to reach the phone. He knew he needed to call for help -- whatever this virus was, it just wasn't going to quit -- but he couldn't, quite seem to coordinate his movements. Everything felt sluggish, as if he was moving through quicksand. Then the dizziness struck again, hard. The room seemed to dip and sway like some bizarre roller coaster. He was falling, he vaguely realised. He tried to catch his balance, but to no avail.

He landed in an uncoordinated heap a bare foot away from where his cell phone was on charge. The proximity mocked him. He felt too weak to even crawl the distance, much less stand again.

The dizziness struck a third time and brought with it nausea. There was nothing left in his stomach to bring back, but still he found himself vomiting. Dimly, he recognised that what was coming up was bloody and the realisation forced its way through his mind: _I'm dying._

The sickness passed, but he was too weak to even move away from the mess. Instead he lay there, on the floor and closed his eyes. He wasn't dying, he realised, he was already dead.

* * *

_TO BE CONTINUED..._


	5. Mosaic

Mosaic

"The most recent victim has been identified as Ian Foster, a commander in the city's Silver Guardians force. Mr Foster was found in his home after neighbours became anxious about his welfare. With confirmation that Mr Foster was, indeed, a victim of this virus, that brings the official number of victims to more than two hundred and fifty in just the last three days. Unfortunately, at this point we have no way of knowing how many more people, like Mr Foster, simply went home to die.

"City authorities are urging people not to panic, while a spokesman for Biolab said they were doing all they could to find a cure, but so far those efforts have been in vain. This is Mandi Ohlin, reporting for..."

Nadira reached out and clicked the television off, shaking her head. "It's not getting any better."

Jen, who'd been watching the news report with her in the breakroom of the Biolab headquarters, shrugged. "I don't think we were expecting it to." She sighed. "I'm not looking forward to telling Eric about Ian Foster."

"They were close?" Nadira asked.

Jen nodded, grimacing. "He was one of the command team in the SGs and someone Eric knew before that."

"I'm sorry."

Jen responded with a bleak smile. "This just feels unreal." Picking up the crutches -- Ven had been able to heal the majority of her injuries, but the ankle was beyond the future tech available, so Jen had to make do with a twenty-first century cast and crutches -- she struggled to her feet. "C'mon -- we need to give Wes and Trip the latest news."

Nadira nodded. "Jen -- do you think we can do this?"

Jen wanted to reassure the other woman, but the words didn't seem to want to come. "I don't know," she finally admitted honestly.

~*~

Staying in the Collins' family mansion for the duration of this mission had its pros and cons, Al decided. On the plus side it meant that the Silverhills authorities didn't notice the sudden influx of people and ask questions as to how they'd been able to breach the quarantine restrictions. On the other hand, it made avoiding certain people difficult, and when Lucas walked out onto the sun terrace, Al knew he'd failed dismally on that score.

He knew what Lucas wanted to talk to him about before the other man had even opened his mouth. He knew, roles reversed, exactly the questions he'd have been asking Lucas. The trouble was, knowing the questions didn't make finding the answers any easier.

"You still haven't spoken to Eric." Lucas was direct and to the point.

Al winced. "No, I haven't."

"Al, time is running out. Our time limit is Friday -- today's Monday..."

"I know that," Al answered quietly. He thought about the state Eric had been in on Saturday morning. Though Kimberly had said nothing to put him off, Al had judged then was not going to be the best time to try it -- and the situation hadn't improved, at least not in Al's estimation.

"The kids have drawn a complete blank so far, this is our last hope and it's got to be today," said Lucas. The expression on his face told Al that Lucas disliked having to make that order. "Otherwise we're not going to have time to act on anything he can tell us."

"I know that," Al repeated. "It's..."

"Al, I know that Eric's not 'well'," Lucas cut in, frustration ripe in his voice as he moved to lean on the terrace's balustrade. "I've had Ven's report on his physical health and her assessment of his mental health -- it isn't going to get any better any time soon." The head of Covert Operations' shoulders sagged and he turned to face Al fully. "He's my friend; Kim's my friend. But we have got to do this otherwise..."

"Boom," Al completed, shaking his head. "I know."

"Paul Miller's arriving in fifteen minutes to take Rob and me up to SGHQ to help run security; the Myers' house is on the way, he can drop you off," Lucas offered.

Something about Lucas' tone told Al that wasn't an offer he could refuse.

~*~

Zaskin yawned. The scientist in him was amazed and astounded by the set up his captor had provided him with. A bank of computers with up to the minute specifications for data processing; the latest versions of every scope and meter he could use; as much bench and work space as any scientist could ever wish for; every last letter of his DNA masking research. The problem was, the human being in him completely rebelled at what his captor was asking him to do.

At the centre of the set up -- which looked as though it was in some converted factory, to judge from the size -- was a stasis couch -- definitely future tech, given that Zaskin's experiments with attempting to create stasis fields began and ended with one failed attempt at preserving a bunch of grapes, and he knew no-one had got beyond that, in the twenty-first century, at any rate -- on which was lying a member of Time Force. It wasn't someone Zaskin had personally met before, but he knew who it was. Knew without having to be told. There could only be one person it was on that couch: Alex Collins.

~*~

Kimberly was almost relieved to see Al walking up the path towards the front porch. While she appreciated his reticence and the consideration he was showing both her and Eric, two full days of utterly compliant Eric Myers was more than wrong. She'd tried to get through to him, talking herself hoarse in the process, but nothing she'd said made the slightest bit of difference. He responded to questions as necessary, but that was it.

And Kimberly wasn't entirely sure she could take much more.

She headed for the front door. Eric had to have heard her, but he made no effort to ask what was going on. Kimberly sighed and shook her head. _Lucas is pretty sure Al can get through to Eric and get answers; I just hope he really can..._

She opened the door just as Al reached it. "Hi," she said, trying to give him a smile in greeting. She got the feeling, from his answering expression, she didn't really achieve it.

"I have to try and talk to him this morning," he answered.

Kimberly nodded. Exactly what she'd expected. "All right."

~*~

Ben sat beside the bed, one of Taylor's hands gently held in his own. This was like some bad dream. How could everything come crashing down in so short a space of time?

It had taken coming up here and being shown Taylor's comatose form before he'd truly believed what Jenny Deslaurier had been telling him. And now he **was** here, he could practically see Taylor slipping away from him.

__

We've already lost our son, Ben found himself thinking. _Please, Taylor, don't let me lose you, too._

~*~

Al watched from the doorway of the small sitting room as Eric sat listlessly in the chair. Even now he was here, he still toyed with the idea of leaving sleeping dogs to lie -- Eric looked so defeated and vulnerable that any sort of interrogation was going to feel like kicking a wounded puppy. The trouble was, they needed the information Eric might have from his time in The Master's 'care'. 

Al sighed. He couldn't afford not to do this -- **they **couldn't afford this not happening.

"I know there's someone there," Eric stated dully. "Blind, not deaf -- I can hear you breathing."

__

And so it begins. "It's Al Drake," he said, walking into the room. Without his eyes to deceive him, Eric was almost bound to recognise Al's voice as being Alex Collins' -- in fact, in the tumult and chaos of the escape from the TOI, Eric **had** recognised him, but there had been no time then for any clarifications and nor had there been since. Given that Eric's present condition was at least partially due to Alex's political manoeuvrings, Al hoped the familiar voice would tap Eric's anger. _Tap his anger and find the real Eric._

"Oh." No sign of recognition to Eric's response. No sign of anything, in fact. 

Al sighed as he came to a halt in the middle of the room. Part of him wanted to try physical intimidation, but Eric was unintimidatable as a general rule, and the blindness made the idea even more redundant, so Al was left standing, feeling awkward. "You know who I used to be?"

"I'm not dumb." But the tone was flat and disinterested.

"I'm surprised you can be so calm about it," said Al, hoping this at least would provoke some sort of reaction. "I'd have thought you'd be about ready to strangle me."

"What good would it do?" That really wasn't an Eric Myers sentiment -- not in Al's experience. "Besides. You're there, I'm here."

"Yeah, so, and?" Al shot back. "Since when did you start letting yourself be limited?"

"I'm blind."

"No, you're not," Al retorted. "You just can't see."

"Same difference." Still Eric's voice remained monotone and lifeless.

Al shook his head. "Uh-uh. One says 'I can't do something' the other says 'I still have four senses working and a mind that knows how to use 'em'."

~*~

The scene Jen found in the research lab was both unsurprising and frustrating. Wes and Trip were both up to the eyeballs in research and papers, but where Trip had taken periodic breaks, Wes had barely moved from the lab since Jen had got there from the hospital two days earlier. In fact, as she and Nadira entered the lab, Wes didn't even look up from his work.

"What's the news?" Trip asked. Nadira answered with the latest casualty figures and Trip cursed. "Damnit."

Wes still didn't move.

Jen gritted her teeth. Enough was enough. "Wes -- time we had a talk."

~*~

Eric twitched. For a second, Al thought he might have broken through. "So?"

__

Time to call out the big guns. "The Eric Myers I knew wasn't a quitter."

But if Al had thought that was going to provoke a pride backlash, he was wrong. "Then you didn't know me very well."

Al folded his arms. "Oh, this ought to be good. What've you ever quit at?"

"I quit school."

"Not through your own choice," Al countered. "Someone planted stolen exam papers in your locker."

Eric seemed to ignore him. "I quit the Marines."

"You were requested to not re-enlist or be medically discharged. Hardly counts as quitting." A frown crossed Eric's face, presumably as he wondered how Al knew that. "When Hawking sent me on that mission to get you to stay in Silverhills, I got the full fact file. So name me one time where you really, honestly just flat out gave up, Eric. Just one." Silence. "I thought not." Eric opened his mouth to say something. "Uh-uh. You know something, Eric? One thing became very apparent reading that fact file: The more often you were told you couldn't do something, that it wasn't possible or that **you** couldn't do it, the more you gunned for it, the harder you tried and the more people you proved wrong."

"Shut up." Finally, reaction.

"Make me," said Al. "You proved 'em wrong in school. You proved 'em wrong in Landstuhl -- you know, you weren't supposed to make it to the hospital, that was how sick you were thanks to Zafar bel Abis. The doc at the scene didn't reckon you'd make it as far as the nearest town never mind Germany, but you did. You made it to Germany and you survived. You proved him and every other medic in the place wrong."

"Shut up." More reaction, this time through gritted teeth.

"Make me," Al repeated. "Get out of that chair and shut me up. It's the only way I will." Eric twitched again, but it was still not enough. Al grimaced. "Someone else you proved wrong," he continued. "That's David Porter. You know he didn't want to hire you -- he didn't figure you'd amount to anything as an SG -- but he was overruled and you'd proved him wrong inside your first week. You proved your Frank Peterson wrong, too..."

That finally did it. Al barely had time to take in the fact that Eric was moving before the other man had caught him with an unerring full tackle.

~*~

"Why is there no progress?" demanded Zaskin's captor as he entered the laboratory.

So far, Zaskin hadn't been able to confirm the identity of his captor. Despite the familiarity of the voice, each and every time the man appeared, his face was shrouded, denying Zaskin the ability to recognise him. 

"There's no progress," Zaskin answered, "because I can't do what you're asking me to do."

"You can!" snapped his captor. "I know you can -- the history banks show you've done it."

"Not what you're asking me to do," Zaskin retorted. "You're asking me not to just mask someone's DNA, you're asking me to physically change it."

"But I know you can do it!" insisted his captor, slamming a fist down on a convenient workbench. 

"I've never done it," Zaskin replied, equally insistent. "And more to the point, what you're asking me to do is ethically wrong. I refuse to experiment on someone without their consent."

"Oh Doctor," drawled his captor, "don't play that card with me. You'd sell your ethics to the highest bidder. And right now, that's me. If you don't do this, I will kill you."

~*~

Al landed on the floor, Eric poised over him.

"Shut the hell up and leave me the fuck alone," Eric yelled, his voice ragged and strained.

"No can do," Al retorted. "Do you know what's going on? Do you even care that in five days time, unless we find The Master, the whole future will be changed? Billions of people wiped out in one stroke."

"Of course I care."

"Then help, damn it! Get off your butt and contribute."

"I can't."

"Bullshit." With a surge, Al pushed Eric off his chest, and before the other man could react, reversed their positions. "Think about this. You've just crossed this room and knocked me on my butt. Still think you 'can't' do things?"

"Bastard!"

Al found himself being bodily flung across the room. He landed with a thud, banging his head against the floor. For a second, he expected more retribution, but when none came, he risked sitting up and found Eric likewise sitting up, arms loosely wrapped around his knees.

"You really are a cold, manipulating son of a bitch," Eric stated, but even that flat statement had more life to it than any of his earlier comments.

Al judged it to be an improvement. "Old habits, I guess."

Eric snorted. "Real old habits." He sighed. "You had a reason for doing this I figure?"

~*~

Alice ran her fingers through her hair. "There's got to be something here."

She, and the rest of the Vengeance Rangers, were once again tearing apart the Northlands Collective site -- this time, in one of the warehouses that hadn't been, apparently, part of Frax's base of operations, though according to Paul Jones, it **was** where Frax had held him prisoner. Unfortunately, as with everything else they'd tried so far, the warehouse was a complete dead end.

"It's completely clean, Ali," Namir observed. "Not even any trash. It's one hundred percent empty and not so much as a footprint in the dust to give us a clue."

"Back to square one?" asked Lexia.

"Looks like it," Alice groaned. "Rick -- can you get a scan of this whole Northlands site. I don't care whether or not we think the warehouse or whatever was or wasn't a part of Frax's base -- let's completely eliminate the site from things."

"You got it, Ali," Rick answered.

"There is one other person we can talk to," JJ put in as Rick went to do the scan. "And that's Shawn."

"Frax jemmied around with his memories," Alice pointed out. "What he knows is probably iffy at best."

"Iffy's better than nothing right at this minute," John replied.

"Wasn't he planning on quitting Silverhills when he came out of the cast?" Lexia queried.

"He did," JJ agreed. "He moved to somewhere back East -- but I have a contact number for him."

"All right." Alice ran her fingers through her hair again. "All right. Nam, you and I are going to help Rick with his scan. John, Lex, JJ -- head back to JJ's apartment. JJ..."

"I'll call Shawn when we get back," JJ completed.

~*~

Al sighed. "We're trying to find The Master -- but the kids are drawing blanks faster than empty bottles at a pill-poppers convention."

"You think I know something," Eric surmised. 

"We know you were interrogated," Al agreed, clambering to his feet and making for the couch, even as he noted that Eric didn't bother moving from his spot on the floor.

"It wasn't by The Master," Eric answered. "I'm fairly sure of that."

"You're probably right."

"And there wasn't a whole lot of moustache twirling going on."

"That figures."

"In fact I've blocked most of it -- the interrogation techniques were...brutal." Al saw a fine tremor travel through Eric's hunched form. "But I do remember the main question they kept asking me."

~*~

Without waiting to see if Wes would move, Jen started for the lab door. When he didn't move, Jen paused.

"Wesley Alexander Collins -- we are **going** to have a talk," she snapped.

There was a scraping of a chair as Wes stood up. "All right," he muttered. "But it's gotta be quick."

Jen's mouth compressed into a thin line, but she said nothing as she led Wes into a currently empty office. 

"What do you want?" Wes asked as he closed the door behind them.

"I want to know why you're working yourself to death," Jen answered, perching on the desk, glad to be off the crutches again.

"Because we've got a deadline," Wes retorted. "We have to find a cure to this virus and find The Master by Friday."

"I know that," said Jen. "That still doesn't explain why you're not taking any care of yourself." Wes said nothing. "You're not stopping to eat...you're barely stopping to sleep -- and even when you do that, you're not going home."

"This is important."

"So are you."

"This is something I can do...the only thing I can do," Wes snapped, rounding on Jen. "I couldn't protect you. I couldn't protect Lexia. I couldn't protect dad -- all I can do is try and find a cure for this virus...and I'm doing just a bang up job of that, aren't I?" he continued, his voice rising. "Two hundred and fifty people are dead -- Jesus...and you want me to take care of myself? Damnit -- there isn't **time** for that." He slammed his fist down on the desk, knocking one of Jen's crutches flying as he did so.

"And if you're so damn tired that you miss something?" Jen cut in. "What then? What happens to the victims of the virus then? Wes you're not Superman. You **can't** protect everyone."

"Well I should be!" Wes yelled. "What the hell good is it if I can't keep my own family safe?"

~*~

Al waited for Eric to collect himself.

"The guy -- Chisholm -- kept asking me about one of Michael Zaskin's projects. The DNA masking that lets Kim use Jen's morpher. I know jack shit about the science behind it -- couldn't answer the questions."

There was a long pause. Al wondered if that was it and guessed, from the way Eric was frowning, there was more.

"Remember one other thing," Eric continued eventually. "Something Chisholm said. I was loopy and out of it, so it mightn't even have been that but...The Master's main base isn't in Silverhills."

Al blinked slowly. That was something that no-one had considered. "What?"

Eric gave a sort of sigh/groan. "I'm not sure. I don't know if I was hallucinating, or dreaming or if it actually happened." He drew his knees up tighter to his chest, as if presenting a smaller target for abuse. "I **think** Chisholm said that I ought to be interested in The Master's base. That it was somewhere I'd shed blood."

"Somewhere you shed blood?" Al echoed, not quite able to suppress a shudder at the thought. He almost didn't want to ask the next question. "Where would that be?"

"Assuming I didn't hallucinate it, there's only two places it could be." Eric snorted softly. "And I don't know where either of them are, exactly." There was a pause. "One's in Kosovo someplace. The other's between here and Malibu."

"Zafar bel Abis' base," Al realised. 

Eric nodded. "If it's either of 'em, it would be the one here in California." There was another pause. "Kim can tell you where it is for sure -- she was conscious when she went there."

* * *

__

TO BE CONTINUED...


	6. Wipe

Wipe

Kimberly stood silently in the doorway, listening to Al and Eric talk. While her overriding feeling was relief that **someone** had been able to get through to him, there was a strong kernel of hurt beneath that. He listened to friends -- or in Al's case, not even that -- more readily than he listened to her. Sure, she hadn't piqued his interest by having been to a place where one of Eric's all time favourite movies just happened to have been real, like Wes had done. Sure, she didn't push his buttons and make him mad, as Al -- or should that be Alex? -- had done. All she had done was be there for him. Love him. Why wasn't that enough?

Quietly, Kimberly moved away. If she went in there now she'd probably say something she'd regret.

~*~

Before Jen could say a word more, Wes turned and started to storm out of the room. Without thinking about it, Jen slid off the desk, fully intending to pursue him and continue the argument, except that the second her injured foot touched the floor, spears of pain stabbed up through her injured ankle. Unable to catch her balance, she found herself falling...

...only to be caught before she could hit the floor.

"Jen..."

The contrite tone to Wes' voice made Jen think that, just maybe some of what she'd said had finally penetrated. But, as he gently set her back on the desk and passed her the crutches he'd knocked flying in his anger, all he actually said was,

"Learn to use those properly or stay at home."

~*~

JJ put the phone down and shook his head. "Shawn doesn't know," he said. "He knew he'd been taken somewhere else, but he wasn't sure where that 'somewhere else' was."

Alice, who, along with Rick and Namir, had just returned from the Northlands collective site, groaned. "Damnit. That's our last lead."

"There has to be something else. Some other clue," said Namir. "This guy can't just vanish into thin air."

"No?" said John. "We can -- why shouldn't The Master be able to?" He frowned. "Hm. That's a point."

"What is?" asked Rick.

"Teleportation," said John.

"Not following you," Lexia objected. "Teleportation, what?"

"There has to be a maximum range to the teleportation."

"There is," Alice agreed, "but that range just takes in everywhere from Monterrey to Northern LA, and that's assuming he doesn't have an industrial version of the devices we've got."

"Oh."

And into that disheartened pause, someone knocked on JJ's front door.

"Anyone expecting visitors?" JJ enquired. Five headshakes met his question. "Thought not."

He headed for the front door, half hoping that the caller was going to be some door to door salesman so that he could release some of the pent up tension. Somewhat to his surprise, however, when he opened the door, he found himself looking straight at Namir's father.

"Ah, hi?"

Al smiled. "JJ, right?" Dumbly, JJ nodded. "Can we come in? I think we might have some information for you."

That was when JJ realised that Al wasn't alone. With him were both Kimberly and Eric Myers. It was the first time since their return from the future that JJ had seen Eric and he couldn't help but be horrified by how different his erstwhile boss looked. Logically, JJ knew that had to be the case; he knew that there had been things done to Eric in his time away, yet it still shocked him.

"Sometime today would be nice," Al suggested.

"Uh, yeah -- sorry. C'mon in."

JJ opened the door wider to allow all three visitors to enter. He closed the door behind them and led the trio through into the living room.

"Guys?"

But that was as far as he got because at that moment, Alice, John and Namir spotted their respective parents.

"Dad!" Namir exclaimed.

"Dad?" John began.

"Mom? What're you guys doing here?" Alice asked.

"We've got some information for you," Kimberly answered.

"About The Master," said Eric softly.

~*~

Lucas, Rob and Paul picked their way through the remains of the Silver Guardian headquarters.

"Geez," Paul muttered. "What a mess."

"That's what the equivalent of twenty pounds of plastique will do," said Rob with a shake of his head. To Lucas, he said, "Was it plastique?"

"Only officially," Lucas answered. "Ven is ninety percent certain it was TX59."

"Shit," said Rob. "Lucky he didn't level the entire block then."

"Yeah." Lucas sighed. "Paul, which way are the research labs?"

"This way." Paul nodded up the stairs. "What is it we're looking for?"

"Michael Zaskin's body or bodily components," said Lucas. "If we don't find those then we're in even deeper shit than we knew about."

"Forgive the dumb question," said Paul, "but why?"

"Entirely forgiven," Lucas answered as they started up the stairs. "And are you sure these are safe?"

"Yeah -- the engineers have been in and certified them safe," said Paul.

"The problem with Zaskin being missing," Rob explained, "is that Michael Zaskin is one of the foremost experts on genetic science and technology. Even in our time."

"Shit," muttered Paul.

"If he's dead then it's probably going to do bad things to the timeline," Lucas continued, "but as he's already established most of the principles of genetic science that he was supposed to establish, that's probably not so much of a problem. But, much as I like the guy, I'm almost hoping we'll find proof that he is dead."

"Because if he's not then he's in The Master's hands?" Paul suggested.

"Got it in one," said Rob.

"Which would be bad because Mike Zaskin knows some scary stuff," Paul concluded.

"Yep," Lucas agreed. "And that may very well make our job all the harder." They reached the top of the stairs. "OK, which way now, Paul?"

~*~

Alice looked at Eric intently. "Dad?" she said. "You know something?"

"Sort of," Eric answered.

Alice glanced at her mother, who shrugged. "Sort of?"

There was a long, painful silence, and Alice realised that whatever this was, Eric wasn't particularly keen on relating it to everyone and in particular to her and to John.

"Guys?" she said. When she had the attention of the other five Vengeance Rangers, she nodded in the direction of the door.

JJ and Rick, at least, grasped exactly what she meant because JJ rather loudly mentioned going to make coffee, while Rick made sure that John didn't object to leaving and closed the door behind them.

"It's just us, dad," Alice said once she was sure John, at least, was out of earshot. "What have you got for us?"

~*~

Trip glanced up from his research as the lab door opened, then wished he hadn't as he saw Wes' expression.

"Don't say a word," Wes muttered, resuming his seat.

"Wasn't going to," Trip replied, returning his attention to his research.

"Good."

Trip studied the data he'd compiled. One of the very first things he and Wes had done between them was do a full scan of one of the victims of Redemption, which had included blood tests. Trip had taken that blood work analysis and set up a comparison between it and the blood work analysis for thousands upon thousands of twenty-first century diseases in the vague hopes of finding a match.

It seemed, looking at the data now on his screen, that the search had turned up just that: A match that, while not perfect, certainly bore a striking resemblance.

"Wes?"

"What?" Wes snapped.

"I think I've got it," Trip answered, wisely ignoring Wes' tone of voice.

"Got what?"

"It," said Trip. "Redemption. I know what it is -- and more importantly," he added, "I know how to cure it, too."

~*~

Guided by Kimberly, Eric took up a seat on what felt like either a wide armchair or a couch, he wasn't entirely sure.

"Dad?" Alice prompted.

"It's The Master's base of operations," Eric replied. "I know where it is." Not pausing to let Alice ask the obvious question, he continued, "It's an abandoned ore processing plant between here and Malibu..."

"It's a couple of hours' drive out of Silverhills, heading south," Kimberly put in.

There was a pause. Then Alice asked one of the two questions that Eric had been dreading. "How do you know about this place?"

"Someone did some moustache twirling," Kimberly answered.

Eric could hear Alice shaking her head. "Not what I meant; I figured they let something slip when they interrogated dad, but you know exactly where it is; I don't believe they were dumb enough to let that much information go."

"They didn't," said Eric. "I've been there before."

"And I figure it's not exactly a tourist spot," Alice said softly. Something in her tone of voice told Eric she had a very good idea of just what this place was. "And would I be right in thinking that mom knows more about this place's location than you do, dad?"

She did know. How did she know? "Yeah," he admitted softly.

"OK." Alice hesitated a moment. Eric mentally braced for her next question. "Maybe..." She stopped. "I think maybe when this is over, dad, we need to talk." He could practically hear her chewing her lip. "But I can leave bel Abis out of what I say to the others."

"OK." Eric nodded, relieved at the let off. He listened and heard Alice leave the room, presumably to go and brief the other Vengeance Rangers.

"You're not going to have that conversation," said Kimberly softly, a knowing tone to her voice.

Eric felt guilty. "Not if I can help it," he admitted equally quietly. "Some things...it's just better this way."

~*~

Ven stood quietly in the doorway of Taylor Earhardt's hospital room. The scene was more than enough to make her heart clench. Taylor was lying in the bed, comatose and connected to an array of monitors and life-saving equipment. Beside the bed, Ben was sitting, gently cradling one of Taylor's hands.

It was fortunate, Ven decided, that Ben was so absorbed in his thoughts that he wasn't aware of her presence. She had come up here with the idea of using some of the thirty-first century medical equipment she had to heal the worst of Taylor's injuries, as she had been doing, surreptitiously, for as many of the victims of the bombing as she could. Unfortunately, the data being displayed on the monitors told her that Taylor was too badly hurt for anything she could do to help.

Unconsciously, Ven noted the signs of decline: Heartbeat, irregular; respiration, laboured; blood pressure, falling; brain activity, nil.

Silently, Ven walked away. She knew what was going to happen. She'd seen it many times in her medical career and she didn't need to see it again, but she'd barely got three steps along the hallway when the thin, piercing whine of the heart monitor flat-lining and hard on its heels came a cry of utter anguish and pain.

Ven swallowed and kept walking. There really **was** nothing she could do here now.

~*~

Alice lay just on the crest of a small hill overlooking the ore processing facility. She felt a faint sense of déjà vu, though whether that was simply from having completed reconnaissance work of this nature several times in the last few days or whether she had actually been to this place before, she wasn't sure.

__

I don't see any thing, she mused, frowning. _Is this guy so arrogant he hasn't bothered with defences, or are they just real well hidden?_

{LIA detects no defensive energy readings.}

In spite of herself, Alice jumped. It was one thing to know that her morpher had artificial intelligence and a direct tap into what she was thinking twenty-four hours a day; it was entirely another to actually experience that link without being morphed.

__

Can't you give me a warning bleep or something? Alice groused. LIA made no response to that. _Are you sure there's no defences?_

{LIA detects no defensive energy readings,} LIA repeated. Then added, {Readings indicate any defences are primitive in nature and not detectable at this distance.}

__

Define primitive, Alice instructed, even as she wriggled back off the top of the hill. She suspected she and LIA had slightly different definitions for the term.

So it proved, as LIA responded, {Native technology.}

Alice rolled her eyes. _We're not that primitive here, thanks._ LIA said nothing.

"Well?" asked JJ as she rejoined him and John.

"Have to wait and see what Rick says," Alice answered, "but it looks like there's not going to be too much difficulty in getting in, unless stealth is our aim." She snorted. "If it is, then we're screwed." She shrugged. "Can't count on there being a convenient sewer pipe twice."

John's eyebrows lifted and he shook his head. "You had **all** the fun in 3013," he observed.

"You don't know the half of it," Alice retorted.

Preventing John and JJ quizzing her further, the other three Vengeance Rangers returned from their scouting trip. Not unlike the scouting trip at the TOI, Rick was smiling.

"You've found something?" JJ asked.

"Easy way in," Rick answered.

"And no," said Namir, grinning widely, "this doesn't involve a sewage pipe."

JJ, John and Lexia exchanged looks.

"I figure I don't want to know," said Lexia.

"You don't," Alice agreed. To Rick, she said, "So what have you found?"

Rick's smile turned into an outright grin. "Well, The Master obviously figures no-one's going to find this place."

Alice made a winding motion with her hand. "Yeah? So? And?"

"So, he hasn't bothered with any surveillance equipment, at all," Rick answered. "I've scanned for any form of radio transmission, microwave emission and anything else that would indicate surveillance equipment -- and found absolutely nada. As long as we approach out of direct line-of-sight of one of the entries, we can approach from which ever direction we like."

* * *

__

TO BE CONTINUED...


	7. Spin

Spin

Alice considered what Rick had said, debating the best plan of attack. From the sounds of things, any sort of attack would be a surprise, which was good. What was not so good was that they had no way of knowing what sort of forces they faced. She knew there had to be four clones with The Master -- what had been found at the TOI told her that much. The question was, were there any Cyclobots remaining? Hordak had possessed some, true, and Frax's entire force had been the bronze robots, but she was more than aware that neither piece of information conclusively proved The Master had some at his disposal now.

What they needed was more reconnaissance. Time was short, true, but it would be beyond dumb to go in, all guns blazing and find it was overkill. Or worse, find that they were walking right into a trap.

"All right," she said. "Nam; can you sneak into the building and take a look around?"

Namir grinned. "Easy."

Alice smiled tightly. "Good. Do it." She looked around the rest of the group. "Everyone else; let's morph. As soon as Nam confirms what we're facing, we're gonna go in; hotter than hell and twice as mean."

Zaskin studied the man on the stasis couch. Alex Collins. He knew that with time travel, anything was possible and that even men who had been dead for ten years could suddenly show up, but still it surprised him.

What was it about him that had their joint captor so irrational as to believe that he, Dr Michael Zaskin, could physically change DNA? It wasn't just the impossible nature of the task that got him, but the insistence that it **had** to be done.

He shook his head. None of this made sense.

Namir made his way wraithlike into the ore processing plant. Morphed and in stealth mode, he was undetectable to most forms of sensor -- only his body head could give him away, and being morphed greatly reduced even that risk -- which made infiltration very easy for him, and made him the logical candidate for this job. Even so, he felt almost absurdly pleased that Alice had trusted him with this mission. He also felt nervous. There was a lot resting on him, it seemed. Part of him knew that Alice wouldn't have asked him to do it, obvious candidate or not, if she hadn't thought he was up to it. Part of him was scared he'd screw up.

A concrete apron and various outbuildings surrounded the actual plant building. He took care to check none of the outbuildings he passed had any occupants, but most of them were little more than ruined rubble-piles. Finally reaching the main plant building, he paused and looked for an actual entry point. Off to his left, at the edge of a crumbling loading bay, was a fire door, so swollen and misshapen from years of neglect that it was barely closed. That looked like a good candidate.

Smiling to himself, he crossed to it and cautiously eased it open a fraction. There were no wires or alarm trips visible and no-one was behind it. He eased it open a fraction more and slid through the gap.

Lucas was tempted to throw his scanner at the wall. "Damn it!" he muttered.

"No trace?" Rob offered.

"Some trace," said Lucas. "A little blood. The sort of amount you might expect if someone had, maybe, fallen over and cut their head."

"In other words," Paul began, "he got knocked off his feet when the bomb went off, hit his head..."

"...and The Master abducted him," Lucas finished off, grimacing. "That's my guess."

"Oh shit," said Paul.

Lucas couldn't disagree.

John lay on the crest of a hill, directly overlooking the ore processing plant. He wondered just how it was that his father had known about this place. There was something that Alice knew about the information that she wasn't saying. He frowned. He didn't like being kept in the dark. When this was all over, he was going to demand a few answers.

Movement distracted him from his thoughts. A door opened and out came a clone; it had to be, seeing as John had only to glance to his left to see the real Rick, lying in a similar position to the one he'd adopted.

Over the comm. he said, "Definitely got clones down there."

Alice's voice came back, "I see him. Stay sharp."

John smiled faintly and continued to watch as the Rick clone stretched and yawned. He suddenly half turned, then looked back, over his shoulder, at the doorway. A moment later and the cause was immediately apparent as the Lexia clone stepped through and out onto the concrete. She grabbed the Rick clone by the arm and tugged. Visibly annoyed, the Rick clone gave in and allowed himself to be drawn back inside.

"What was all that about?" JJ wondered.

"I don't think I want to know," Rick answered.

"At least she didn't kiss him," Lexia pointed out, prompting a chorus of 'ews' from the rest of the Vengeance Rangers.

The chat subsided and John refocused his attention on the processing plant. Just how **had** his father known about this place?

Wes stared at Trip, not daring to believe him. "You've got it?"

Trip nodded vigorously. "It's a variant of malaria. A...a super malaria, if you like."

"And Biolab's one of the leaders in malarial research," Wes realised. "We've got it!" He suddenly felt light-headed. "We've really got it!"

Trip grinned. "We've got it," he agreed.

"How soon can we work up a treatment plan?" Wes asked.

"If you can get me the latest data on Biolab's research," Trip answered, "we can get it done within an hour."

It was dim inside the processing plant, Namir discovered. The hallway he found himself in had an air of painful neglect to it. Strip lights should have lighted it, but as far as he could see, there were only a couple of lights actually working, and they were so grimy and grunge covered that they might as well not have bothered.

_Nice place,_ Namir decided as he started along the hallway. Over the comm., he heard John report a sighting of a couple of clones. The ensuing conversation made him smile a little bit, but it also made him even more cautious. By his estimate, he was heading straight for the area the clones had been seen in.

Sure enough, the next moment, he rounded a corner and found himself looking at the retreating back of the Rick clone. Namir froze in position as the clone stopped and slowly turned back.

"Come **on**!" called the Lexia clone. "He wants us **now**, Rick."

"I thought I heard something," the Rick clone answered, looking straight at -- and through -- Namir.

"There's nothing there," snorted the Lexia clone. "Come on. He's pissed as it is without you making him madder."

The Rick clone gave Namir's position another glare then turned away again. "All right, all right, already." Grumbling under his breath, the Rick clone headed away.

Namir didn't so much as breathe until he was sure that both clones were well out of earshot. _Too close._

Nadira took one look at Jen's expression as the other woman hobbled into the break room and knew that Wes had gone too far.

"What happened?" she asked, gently helping Jen to sit down.

Jen just shook her head. "It's like...like I don't know him any more." Her eyes filled with tears. "It's like he's not the man I married."

"What did he say?" Nadira asked, almost dreading the answer.

Jen shook her head again, tears now rolling heedless down her cheeks. "It...it wasn't what he said," she whispered. "It was...was just as if...if he doesn't care about anything any more."

"Jen?"

"He...he was so cold...so angry...so...so mean. And nothing I said...or did...made any difference." Jen swallowed heavily, then added softly, "And I don't know what I'm going to do about it."

JJ lay behind a clump of scrubby bushes. The grey colour of his Ranger uniform helped him to blend in with the patchy vegetation and earth of the ore plant's surrounds, which meant Alice had given him the position closest to the plant. The instant trust, even of someone who was completely new to being a Ranger, felt weird to him. He'd been a Guardian for two years before this mess had begun and although he had become one of the registered drivers for the organisation, that had been a relatively recent promotion. There was trust in him to do his job, but he was still only trusted with the basics of that job. Whereas now, not only was he forward reconnaissance, he was also Namir's back up. If Alice decided that a second infiltration was required, he was the one who would go.

He had balked a little at Alice's order. _"I've never done this before; I don't know how to do any of this!"_ he had objected.

Alice had just grinned. _"When you morph for the first time, you'll get a whole bunch of information. Trust me, you'll know how."_

She'd been right. JJ now found himself with knowledge of stealth tactics and infiltration that he certainly hadn't had before. He also had a basic knowledge of field medicine, field communications and some very elementary demolitions techniques. It meant he could, at least temporarily, take over from any of the other Vengeance Rangers if the need arose.

"News from home," Rick announced, breaking the comm. silence that had fallen. "Lucas has confirmed Dr Zaskin is The Master's prisoner."

"No real surprise there," Alice responded. "But nice to know for certain."

"Also," Rick continued and JJ could hear a smile in the Red Ranger's voice, "Lucas says that Trip and dad have found a cure for Redemption."

"Now that," said John, "is definitely good news."

JJ opened his mouth to contribute, but a sudden movement just in front of him made him freeze. Tracking the movement, he found that the loading bay doors were slowly opening with an eerily silent motion. And from between them, he saw the first Cyclobot exit the processing plant.

"Uh, guys," he said, "I think we're about to have company."

"This is Mandi Ohlin, reporting live from Silverhills' main hospital where the first batch of vaccine for what Biolab employees are dubbing the Redemption Virus is expected shortly. The vaccine's development came after a sudden breakthrough in research this morning. Although this will come too late for some, for many, this is just the news they have been praying for. Biolab have said that they will be putting out a statement for the press this afternoon, giving details of the breakthrough and the vaccine.

"In related news, the police investigation into last Friday's explosion at the Silver Guardian Headquarters has determined that it was caused by explosives, planted in a trash can, that caused the damage. As yet, however, this remains a motiveless and suspectless crime. More news as and when I get it."

Kimberly clicked off the television. "They've done it," she said, glancing at Al. "They've really found the cure."

Al gave a lopsided smile. "I never doubted it."

Namir heard Rick's announcement about Zaskin and made a note of it. Though Alice hadn't said anything about it, he knew that it was going to be his responsibility to find Zaskin and rescue the scientist. _I hope I can do it._ He rounded another corner and found himself entering a large, open hall.

The room had been set up as a scientist's lab. Banks of computers and more bench space than Namir thought any scientist could possibly use lined the hall. Hunched over one of the computers at the far end of the hall was a man in a lab coat that may once have been white. _Bet that's Zaskin,_ Namir decided, stepping forwards.

As he moved further into the room, though, his eyes were drawn to a stasis couch in the centre of the room.

For a full minute, Namir stared at it; unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. The occupant of the couch was Alex Collins. Alex Collins was dead. It shouldn't be possible.

"Uh, guys?" JJ's voice sounded strained. "I think we're about to have company."

"Shit!" John's exclamation was a mix of surprised and angry. "Metal heads."

"Then let's give it to 'em, hotter'n hell," was Alice's command. "Nam, you know what to do."

Shaken from his shock by the comm. comments, Namir opened his mouth to give an affirmative when the hall was filled with the sort of maniacal chuckle that sent a shiver of fear straight down his spine.

"I really have to say," said a voice from immediately behind Namir, "that I do love it when a plan comes together."

The image of the hall, the scientist and the stasis couch all flickered out, revealing the real room Namir had stepped into as nothing more than a large, but ultimately empty, store room. _Holographs. But..._ Namir spun round and found himself facing a man no taller than he was and who was wearing a hooded robe that most effectively obscured his face.

"You must be Namir," said the man in an almost friendly tone of voice.

Namir stared, open mouthed. He knew he was still in stealth mode; the man in front of him shouldn't have been able to see him.

"Power Down," the man stated, and to Namir's surprise, he found himself demorphing. "That's better."

"What the hell?"

The man laughed. "I created you. You don't seriously think that your tricks and training would let you get past me, do you?"

"Who are you?"

"Can't you guess?" The man asked, reaching up to draw back his hood. "I'm The Master."

And Namir found himself staring at the face of Alex Collins.

* * *

_TO BE CONTINUED..._


	8. Backlight

Backlight

There was one, brief moment of utter silence outside the ore processing plant after JJ's warning. John was the first to react.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, springing to his feet with the ease and grace of a trained warrior. "Metal heads."

Alice wasn't too far behind him, calling, "Then let's give it to 'em, hotter'n hell."

Lexia tried to follow their example, but she suddenly found herself frozen stiff in absolute terror. Various memories stirred in her mind; of Mirracon and before even that; of their actual abduction by Frax's Cyclobots.

The Cyclobots were swarming out now in droves. Lexia could see John tangling with four or five of the bronze robots; Alice seemed to be moving around the battle site in a blur of white, taking on and destroying any bots that crossed her path; Rick was taking on two bots, playing one against the other and letting them beat each other up rather than him.

She was the only ranger not involved, and that was because she was scared.

Weak.

Useless.

__

"You are not useless or weak, Lexia," her therapist had told her in her first appointment, and a week ago, she'd almost been able to believe it.

Not any more.

She was a complete and utter coward.

~*~

Namir stared in mixed outright shock and confusion.

"Got nothing to say?" sneered The Master. "No, 'hi dad'?"

"You're not my dad," Namir shot back, anger bringing back his powers of speech. "I don't know who or what you are, but you're not him."

The Master laughed; an awful, mocking sound that seemed to fill the store room. "So, so wrong." The contempt was cutting.

Namir just glared back. "My dad is Alan Drake. He's a civilian pilot."

More laughter. "My, my, my; you are a deluded little bastard." Namir opened his mouth to snap a retort, but The Master was already continuing, "Lemme tell you a story, Namir Drake. Lemme tell you a little piece of real history."

~*~

Paralysed by fear as she was, something slowly trickled through Lexia's mind. Not all of the Rangers were all right. Her gaze fell finally on the newest Ranger, JJ.

He wasn't all right.

He was surrounded.

He needed help.

Why was no-one helping him?

Someone had to help him.

~*~

JJ found himself falling back under an onslaught of blows from the robots surrounding him. As much as the information rush and his own skills helped, he couldn't seem to match what the robots were throwing at him.

He needed help, but there was no-one who could help. Everyone had their hands full with the robots.

And then he found himself firmly gripped by two of the robots surrounding him. A third was looming over him, weapon raised and ready. JJ struggled against the two bots holding him, but their grip was too strong and in one crystal clear moment, he knew he was going to die; that there was nothing he could do to stop it.

And the next moment, the third bot seemed to suddenly fly backwards of its own volition. It took JJ a moment to register the fact that actually, the robot had been hit by a stream of pink energy. A second later and the two robots imprisoning him had also been destroyed. A second later still, and Lexia had joined him.

"All right?" she asked, keeping her blaster out and ready.

"Terrified," JJ admitted. "You?"

"Same," Lexia confessed. "And I think it's time the Cyclobots paid for making me feel this way."

JJ managed a smile as he drew his own blaster. "Sounds like a plan to me."

~*~

"There was man," The Master began. "Guy called Alex Collins. Big hero. Everybody thought he was fantastic; brave; clever. Hell, he was the man who defeated Biocon and cornered Ransik. That right there was one reason why he had such a big man reputation..."

"I know who Alex Collins was," Namir cut in.

The Master laughed. "Ah, but you don't. That's the whole problem, Namir Drake; you don't know who he is."

"And I suppose you do." Namir was sarcastic.

The Master's laughter increased. "You might say that."

"You're deluded."

"And you're misguided," The Master shot back. "You're blinded by the rhetoric and the crap that your friends have told you. They've glorified Alex Collins. Deified him. Well let me tell you, Namir Drake, he's no God. He's no hero. If he was really a hero," The Master continued, rapidly working himself into an insane fury, "he wouldn't have left me to rot when his friends," and The Master spat the term as if it were a curse, "interfered."

None of this was making sense as far as Namir was concerned.

"I'll break it down for you," The Master continued, his voice dropping from rant to drawl. "Alex Collins isn't as dead as everyone thinks he is."

Namir had half been expecting The Master to say that and had an answer ready: "You're not him. The real Alex Collins died ten years ago."

Oddly, though, The Master just looked smug. "Oh yeah; guess you **don't** know so much, huh, Namir Drake?"

Namir scowled. "I've had just about..."

"Alpha: Online."

And Namir found himself rigidly frozen in place, unable to move or speak.

"So much better." The Master snickered. "It's a pity Merle Askot's dead, or otherwise, I'd be thanking her; she's made my revenge so much sweeter." Namir glowered. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Alex Coward Collins." The Master gave a laugh. "Or should that be Alan Drake?"

~*~

John dropped into a crouch and executed a leg sweep to take out another half a dozen Cyclobots. "Damnit," he mumbled, springing back to his feet. "Does this guy have a replicator going or something?"

A bark of familiar but mocking laughter drew John's attention outwards from his own situation. Glancing round, he found the source and felt his blood run cold. Standing just off the battlefield, arms folded in a casual pose and with a sneering expression on his face, was his father.

Part of John **knew** that it wasn't the real Eric Myers. He knew that his father was unwell; that his time in the future had done medical and psychological damage; that The Master had already cloned him at least once before. But all that paled in the face of seeing him exactly as he remembered and sporting the sort of expression he had frequently imagined seeing on his father's face.

__

"I'm disappointed in you."

It took John a second to realise that there was an actual echo of the words. Someone had spoken them.

"You're a failure."

For just a second, John heard the words he'd half expected to hear from his father, in his father's voice, and believed them. Then cold, hard anger filled the pit of his stomach. No matter what his relationship with Eric was like, he **knew** his father would never act like this.

And this was not his father.

This was the creation made by the man who'd orchestrated this whole mess and who had, above all, hurt his father.

With a growl, John launched himself at the clone.

~*~

Alice heard the Eric clone's voice and risked a glance in that direction. Having been fooled by a clone herself, she opened her mouth to warn John that it a clone was all it was, but before she could, she heard her brother give a feral snarl of anger and he dived for the clone.

Alice wanted to feel relieved by that, but given the respective skill levels of John and the real Eric -- skills that she had to assume the clone possessed too -- relief wasn't easy to come by. _At least John has a strength advantage..._ But that thought died a death the instant she saw the Eric clone dodge John's first attack. Her gaze was drawn to the clone's left wrist. _Oh shit._ Strapped to the clone's wrist was the Quantum Morpher.

And as if he'd read her mind, or more likely because the clone's train of thought was very much the same as her dad's, he used the morpher and evened the contest even further.

"Hey, Sweet cheeks; what say you and I dance?" drawled another familiar voice, dragging Alice's attention away from her brother.

The other clones had joined the battle now. It was the Rick clone who was speaking to her, a lascivious leer on his face.

"In your dreams," Alice retorted.

"My dreams," he began, launching an attack. "Your nightmares."

~*~

Namir felt his blood run cold at The Master's words. He wanted to refute them but whatever it was The Master had done to him prevented him from giving voice.

"I told you," The Master warned. "He didn't die at Rancho Diablo. You see, he has these two pesky friends, I think you know them. Interfering bastards both of them. Without them, he'd have died of his own accord when he was nineteen. But no! They had to intervene."

Namir stared, his surprise rapidly mounting. What the hell did all this mean? And still he couldn't ask.

The Master grinned wolfishly. "Oh yeah, I guess his alcoholic past doesn't get a whole lot of publicity either." Namir felt sick. "Well Rob Logan and Ven Desouza did intervene. They sobered him up and kept him that way. And then, when he turned suicidal again, they tagged him with a temporal transponder. When he detonated the explosives and took out the Mutorgs, they dragged him back to the thirty-first century." The Master's grin faded into a scowl. "And that action created a temporal fold."

The pieces slotted into place in Namir's mind and he understood. The Master was an exact, temporal duplicate of Alex Collins. It had happened before. Namir was fairly sure he'd read, somewhere, about temporal duplicates being created in the early days of temporal exploration, when safe-guards hadn't truly been established. It was one reason why temporal transponders were barely used; although it wasn't a process guaranteed to create a temporal duplicate, it happened more times than it didn't. But if Namir now understood what The Master was, he was still confused as to exactly what he was after now.

"Do you know where it dumped me?" The Master continued rhetorically. "It left me in the 2500s. In the middle of the Purges."

~*~

Rick wondered vaguely just which piece of bad karma it was that was currently biting him in the ass. How was it that he was the one who got to fight with the John clone **and** a small army of Cyclobots? He ought to have been winning the fight easily; he was the one who had his strength, speed and skill augmented by being morphed, but the John clone had all of John's memory implants and, it seemed, a double dose of strength, while the Cyclobots had numbers on their side.

"This is not my day," he muttered, dropping back under the onslaught. But that just took him back into the bank of waiting Cyclobots.

He fought out of the cluster, but that took him back into the John clone's path.

"Need a hand?" enquired a new voice over the Ranger comm. system. And for a second, Rick couldn't recognise it. Then he saw a flash of red energy flash between him and the John clone to destroy a Cyclobot and it finally penetrated that the voice belonged to his father.

"Dad?" Rick was sufficiently surprised that for a second, he took his eye off the John clone, who promptly floored him with a skilful leg sweep.

"Not just me," Wes answered, hauling Rick back to his feet and landing a solid kick to the John Clone's shoulder.

As Rick regained his balance, he realised the truth of that: Not only was Wes there, fully morphed; so were the blue, yellow, green and pink Time Force Rangers.

"What say we give back to these guys what they've done to us," added another fresh voice, drawing Rick's attention to another band of new arrivals.

Rick was taken aback; the speaker, Ben, sounded as angrier than Rick had ever heard him. To Ben's left were three other Guardians, Paul Miller, Jenny Deslaurier and Mara Reed, all of whom looked almost as angry. To Ben's right was Nadira, who looked ready to tear anyone apart.

Rick found himself smiling. Reinforcements, indeed.

~*~

Namir felt sick all over again. The Purges had been one of the worst times in Galactic history. They had been the outcome of a long and harsh galactic war, the likes of which had never been seen before or since, and human kind had been on the losing side. The victors, The Vermink, then attempted to purge the galaxy of all humans and the Purges had begun. To be a human in that period was to be hunted and, if caught, tortured.

The Master was nodding. "I see you know what that means. Well try imagining this, Namir Drake: Running from hole to hole, all the while knowing that if they catch you, you're dead. Living in fear of your life every single second of each day." The Master shook back the voluminous robe he was wearing to reveal bare and heavily scarred arms. "Try being caught by The Vermick. Try having their burrowers dig into your flesh until you can't even tell up from down."

Bile hit the back of Namir's throat.

"You try," The Master continued, leaning forwards, "being made into their goddamn slave." The Master leaned even closer. "I was there for two, whole, torturous years. I kept hoping that someone would realise I was there. That someone would do the right thing and pull me out of there. But no-one did. And then, one day, they picked me for their Jakten. Do you know what that is?"

Namir tried to shake his head; the word was unfamiliar to him. Thanks to whatever it was that The Master had done to him, though, he was unable to so much as twitch.

The Master grinned humourlessly. "No, of course you wouldn't. Jakten was the hunt. The Vermick would pick on someone and force that person to run from packs of their Ulvs -- ferocious, dog-like things that would rip you limb from limb. They called it sport." The Master turned on his heel and paced away. "They picked me and I ran. I had no choice. It was run or die." The Master swung back to face Namir once more. "It was run and die." Another humourless grin crossed The Master's face. "Destiny Force -- ya gotta love it."

~*~

Zaskin studied data on one of the computer screens. Faint sounds of battle drifted to him from somewhere outside. That meant things were coming to a head. Sooner or later, either he was going to be rescued or The Master was going to return and have him killed. Or worse.

He looked over at the stasis couch once more and the first germ of an escape plan occurred to him. Zaskin smiled.

~*~

Namir wondered, wildly, what The Master meant by that.

"Can't you guess?" The Master drawled, as if he was reading Namir's thoughts. "No, I'll bet your little naïve ass can't even conceive it." He chuckled. "Destiny Force pulled me through a time hole. It did what dear ol' dad should have done. It took me home. Except, it wasn't home. Because Alex Collins was long dead and I was a man without a place in the world."

A sick feeling stirred in Namir's stomach.

"So I decided I was going to **make** myself a place in the world," The Master continued, his voice once again rising in anger. "Your father left me there, in the past; in that hell. Fair's fair. And now, it's time to end it. Time to stop it from even happening."

Before Namir could even process that, The Master turned on his heel and started towards the door.

"Alpha: Follow!"

And Namir found himself mechanically following The Master out of the storeroom trap, along the hallway and into a big, open lab similar to the holograph that had disguised the store room. In fact, Namir realised, it was exactly like the holograph. There was a stasis couch, surrounded by a bank of benches and computers with someone apparently busily engaged in an experiment at the far end of the room; in fact, all it was missing was the stasis couch's occupant.

Even as Namir took that in, he heard The Master swear.

"Zaskin!" he roared.

The man, Zaskin, slowly turned from whatever he was doing. "Thought you'd be back; and with a little drone, too."

Despite knowing that Zaskin was probably referring to the clones, Namir couldn't help but feel inwardly outraged at that comment.

"You..." But The Master was apparently speechless.

Zaskin smiled coldly. "I can't do what you're asking me to do, and furthermore, I won't."

And then The Master pitched forwards as something solid connected with his head.

* * *

__

TO BE CONTINUED...


	9. Zoom

Zoom

John was distantly aware of the arrival of reinforcements but most of his attention was focussed on the clone of his father. They'd been evenly matched before the clone had used the stolen Quantum Morpher; with the morpher augmenting his skills and strength, the clone overmatched John by a factor that John didn't even want to consider. All he could do was dodge, duck, avoid and hope like hell someone would be able to help him. But with the sheer weight in numbers of the Cyclobots, he knew that was unlikely.

The clone lined up another attempt at separating John's head from his shoulders and then, to John's surprise, hesitated. Before he could really process that, the morph flickered a couple of times and then died altogether, leaving the clone looking surprised and alarmed.

"I guess it's just not gonna be your day," John decided. Taking advantage of the clone's distraction, he launched a punch straight for the clone's unprotected head. There was a look of pure terror on the clone's face and then John found his fist going straight through the familiar visage as the clone turned to goo.

÷

Zaskin turned away from the console where he'd deactivated the clones' cohesion signal and stared at the young man who'd entered with The Master. "Why aren't you goo?" he asked.

The young man made no response.

"Not a clone," Alex commented as he dumped The Master's insensate body onto the stasis couch. "Just at a guess." He turned the stasis field on, ensuring The Master would cause no further problems.

The young man rolled his eyes but still said nothing.

"So why isn't he saying or doing anything?" Zaskin enquired.

"You said The Master was a temporal copy of me." Zaskin nodded. "From about two week's time – as far as I'm concerned." Zaskin nodded again. "Oh shit." Alex groaned. Before Zaskin could say anything, the Time Force Major added, "Alpha: Offline."

Suddenly the young man's pose relaxed and he sighed. "What **was** that, anyway?"

"Never mind that, who are you?" Zaskin asked.

"I'm Namir – the real one."

"I'd spotted that." Zaskin shook his head. "Are you a rescue attempt?"

"Sorta."

÷

With the last of the clones turned to pink goo, the remaining Cyclobots were no match for the combined forces of the Silver Guardians, the Time Force Rangers and the Vengeance Rangers and in short order, the battle was over.

"What happened?" JJ asked, surveying the carnage.

"Looks like Namir found Dr Zaskin," Lucas suggested.

"Or The Master's playing with us," muttered Kimberly.

"Wouldn't be the first time," said Ben.

"There's an easy way to settle this," Alice stated. She pushed the communicate button on her morpher. "Namir?"

"Go ahead, Ali."

"How's things looking inside?"

"All secure," came the reply. "I'm with Dr Zaskin and someone you just have to see to believe."

"What about The Master?" asked Wes.

"He's secured," Namir answered. "And out cold."

"Do I want to know?" Lucas asked.

"It's an interesting story," Namir admitted. "How're things out there?"

"All clear," Alice answered. "No more Cyclobots and no more clones. We're on our way in." She cut the connection. "Speaking for me, I think it's time we got to hear that interesting story."

"I couldn't agree more," said Lucas.

÷

Namir looked at Zaskin and then Alex. "Well," he said, "they're coming."

"And you're certainly right about one thing, Namir," Zaskin replied, "it's going to be an interesting story."

Alex shook his head. "You don't know the half of it."

÷

Wes followed Alice's lead through the complex. A distant corner of his mind was horrified at this revisitation of Eric's past, conscious that this was the latest in a long series of kicks Eric had received in the last two months. The rest of his mind was occupied by wondering just how to jump ahead of the queue and beat The Master to a pulp for what he had done.

The dimly lit hallway opened out into the main hall of the processing plant and the first thing Wes saw was a stasis couch with an occupant lying on it. Then he spotted Zaskin, Namir and a third person, who was standing with his back to the hallway door. Where was The Master?

"Nam?" Alice was calling. "What's going on?"

"It's a very, very long story," answered the person with Namir and Zaskin and Wes felt his gut chill to cryogenic levels.

It couldn't, shouldn't, be him. Surely? But he'd done it before, hadn't he? Faked his own death and hidden. Why not this time? And then the speaker was turning and Wes found himself once more staring at the face of his descendant.

"You bastard!" Wes was beyond angry. "This is all your fault!" He started forwards, fully intending to knock Alex's head off. It **had** to be the other man's fault. How many times had he manipulated situations or obfuscated to get what he wanted?

"It's not his fault, Wes," Lucas yelled.

Wes barely heard him.

"He didn't do it!" Namir put in, stepping in front of Alex.

"Get out of the way and let me deal with that son of a bitch," Wes hissed.

"Wes, no!"

Not for the first time in his life, Wes found himself being restrained by Katie. "Let me go." Wes wished he hadn't demorphed.

"Not until you quit being a butthead," Katie snapped. "This isn't his fault."

"He lied, Katie. It was **all** his fault."

"Wes, listen to me," said Lucas. "This mess is **not** Alex's fault."

"Then why is he here?" Wes demanded, struggling against Katie's hold.

"That," said Zaskin, speaking for the first time, "I can explain."

"If it helps you, Wes," Alex said softly, "The Master kidnapped me during Merle Askot's trial. Today is supposed to be the day Pieter van Zyl begins prosecution."

That brought Wes up short. "How?"

Alex shrugged. "I was crossing the Quadrant, heading for the Supreme Court. The next thing I remember is waking up here, about an hour ago, when Dr Zaskin brought me out of stasis and told me what was going on."

"So what is going on?" Alice asked. "And who's now in stasis?"

"That," said Namir, "is The Master. And he's absolutely one hundred percent crazy."

"Raise a hand if you're surprised by that announcement," Ben mumbled.

"But **who** is he?" Trip asked. "He has to be someone who really knows us." He gestured to the Time Force rangers.

"Oh, he's that all right," Namir agreed.

"Since you seem to know most about it, Nam," said Lucas, "how about you start these 'interesting' explanations?"

÷

For a second or two, the world dipped and swayed around Al. It was an unpleasant sensation, but it was only as he felt someone guiding him to a seat that he realised **he** had swayed with it.

"What's wrong?" Rob asked.

"Something's changed," Al answered. He blinked a couple of times and frowned. "The future's shifting."

"How can you tell?" Ven demanded. "That's something only a temporal expert could say for certain."

Al gave her a sour look. "I have a dual set of memories," he replied. "I remember what happened during Askot's trial."

"Not following you," said Rob, frowning. "What are you talking about?"

Al swallowed as bile suddenly hit the back of his throat as more of the new memories made themselves known. "I remember having to file reports the morning of Jen's testimony, which was why I missed it. But I also remember walking across the Quadrant and being grabbed from behind and waking up on a stasis couch. Here."

"What?" Ven looked incredulous. "What do you mean?"

"I mean The Master abducted me. An earlier me."

"Why?" Rob asked.

"To change history," Al answered simply. "And it's working." Al found himself grinning. "But not in the way The Master wanted."

÷

Alex found himself feeling thoroughly nauseated as Namir's explanations wound down. No matter what anyone else said, this was, ultimately, his fault. Something he had done – or would do, he wasn't entirely sure on that point – had created The Master, and The Master had been the one to cause all of this chaos.

"What do we do now?" Alice asked, breaking the silence that had fallen. "What do we do with The Master?"

But no-one had an answer for either of her questions, Alex realised. It was clear that whatever else they'd been expecting, this was not it. And then the solution to the whole mess became clear to him and he suddenly wanted to kick himself for not having seen it sooner.

"Send me back," he said.

"What?" Lucas looked blank.

"Send me back," Alex repeated. "To my own time. To Askot's trial."

It was Trip who first tracked the importance of what he was suggesting. "You can't do that!" he objected. "You'd be changing the future – the one thing Time Force is supposed to prevent."

Alex gestured to the assembled crowd with a wave of his hand. "Nothing you've told me suggests this is a future that's worth protecting." He sighed. "Besides, with what I already know, the future's going to change. Unless you're some how going to produce a memory tech and adapt my memories?"

Lucas slowly shook his head. "We don't have one here and if you're right, there's no way to get one here."

"I am right," Alex answered. "Anything we do right now changes the future. Let me change it and make sure this doesn't happen."

"Let him," said Wes softly, cutting across another protest from Trip. "What have we got to lose?"

"Billions of people die," said Trip. "Zaskin could…"

"I can't do memory adaptation," said Zaskin shaking his head. "It's one thing to modify a white noise generator to break down fake memories, it's something else to jemmy around inside someone's mind with retro-fitted hardware. I could end up turning the victim into a living vegetable, or worse. And in this case, I don't see that helps us any."

"It doesn't," Lucas agreed.

"Then let him go back and change things," said Kim. "If he can."

"I can," Alex promised.

"Send him back," said Ben. "Let him make this right; cos I sure don't believe this is 'right'."

"How?" Nadira asked.

"What about the time ship?" asked Rick.

"That would be a bit obvious," Katie pointed out. "Landing a time ship in the middle of the Quadrant would…"

"Would be a bit like waving a flag and saying 'Hi, illegal time incursion going on'," finished Alice with a grin.

"That won't have been how The Master abducted me, anyway," said Alex shaking his head. "He'll have done it quietly and discreetly."

"Then it'll have been a direct portal generator." From the expression on Rick's face, Alex guessed the younger man wasn't sure how he knew that information, or why.

Alex nodded. "That would be my guess."

"And do you have any guesses what The Master would have done with it when he'd finished?" asked Wes sharply.

Alex gave a lopsided sort of smile. "It's somewhere here, hidden in plain sight. The Master's crazy and he's arrogant enough to figure Zaskin wouldn't recognise a portal generator."

"I wouldn't," Zaskin agreed. Then he smiled a little sheepishly. "But it's probably not in the lab here; I've probably messed with every item of future tech here." At the sound of a couple of groans, he shrugged. "I had to do something to look busy, even if I wasn't planning on doing what The Master had asked me to do."

"It could be just about anywhere else, though," said Rick with a grimace. "It's only about this big across." And he held his fingers a scant inch apart.

Alex blinked. "They've got a lot smaller in between my time and yours." Then he frowned as something else dropped into his mind. "You might find it with a book. I was holding the book when The Master grabbed me and, well…"

"No book now," Lucas finished. "All right, we need that generator, and we know what we're looking for."

"You're going to do this?" Trip asked.

"We don't have a choice," Lucas answered.

"What sort of book?" Ben asked.

"It's a diary," Wes said, provoking a couple of surprised looks. "Isn't it?"

Alex nodded, not surprised Wes had guessed that much.

"Let's get searching," said Alice, preventing any further comment. "The sooner we find this thing, the sooner this can all just be a bad memory."

The next fifteen minutes saw every person present scouring the whole complex, inside and out, searching for the portal generator. It was Namir who finally found it, in a small cell-like room not far from the main laboratory. It seemed to be where The Master had been sleeping, to judge from the tumbled pallet and untidy heap of laundry in the corner, Alex guessed when Namir led him to it.

"Couldn't see the book," Namir said, "but unlike Dr Zaskin, I know a portal generator when I see one." And he waved a hand at the small black device sitting on top of the nightstand. "Guess he didn't want to be parted from it."

Alex pulled open the nightstand drawer. Inside was the diary, which he held up for Namir to see. "Not so far apart."

"No." Namir frowned. "I remember seeing that book at home, before this whole craziness started. You really are my dad." There was a hurt tone to Namir's voice. "Why didn't you and mom tell me?"

Alex shrugged awkwardly. "I don't know."

"Make me a promise," Namir demanded. "Promise me that's one thing you'll do differently second time around."

Alex smiled faintly. "That's an easy promise to make."

÷

Lucas waited patiently in the main lab. He had no doubts that Namir had found the device, nor was he entirely surprised that it was Namir who found it. Lucas smiled wryly. Something told him telling Namir he was very like his father wouldn't go down too well right now, particularly if the comparison was being made between him and the insane temporal copy.

"It's found?" Wes' voice was tight with far too many emotions. Looking up, though, Lucas could only see blankness on Wes' face.

_We've all been pushed too far._ "It's found," he agreed.

"Damn it," Wes muttered, that blank shell cracking for just a moment. "I really thought…I really thought he was dead."

"You can understand why Alex wanted to hide, though," Lucas pointed out.

Wes snorted. "Yeah."

"But you still blame him."

"Lucas, it's his fucking clone that's done all this to me and to my friends and to my family. Shit," Wes exclaimed, "he nearly damn well killed my wife; he might as well have killed my best friend for all that's left of him. He **did** kill my dad. And let's not forget what that bastard's done to my kids."

"It's not going to happen again." Alex's voice was soft. Lucas turned to see Alex standing just inside the laboratory. He now entered, but all his attention was on Wes, whose expression was once more blank and emotionless. "I don't know what I – he – was thinking when he made the decisions that ended you all up here. All I do know is I'm going to make damn sure it doesn't happen again." He smiled faintly. "And if that means learning how to live as Alex Collins, descendant of the famous Wes Collins, I guess that's what I gotta do."

Lucas expected Wes to make some sort of harsh response to that, but to his surprise, Wes actually smiled. "I'll hold you to that," he warned.

It seemed to be some sort of private joke because it provoked a chuckle from Alex. "Not this time you won't." So saying, he gently lobbed a leather-bound book to Wes. "I think this thing's dominated my life long enough. Have it back."

Wes nodded, but said nothing more.

"It's time," said Alex.

"Shouldn't we wait for everyone else to get back?" Lucas asked, frowning.

Alex shrugged. "What's the point? As soon as I leave here…"

"…We cease to exist," Lucas finished. "I know. It just seems there ought to be more to it than this. You're about to change the world."

Alex shrugged. "No I'm not. I'm about to change the far future, for the better. Maybe someday I'll tell you guys about it."

"Make it a real long time before you do," said Wes. "We don't need to know when you talk to us in your office."

"I'll do that," Alex promised.

"You're sure this is going to work?" Lucas answered.

"Positive," Alex replied, thumbing the portal generator on. A silvery time portal opened in the centre of the room. "This thing goes two ways. From here to 3001 and from 3001 to here. It's pretty basic."

"All right." Lucas nodded. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

And without another word, Alex stepped through the portal…

…and found himself in an alleyway not far from TFHQ. No sooner had he arrived than the portal disappeared and the portal generator winked out of existence, the last aspect left of that ruined future gone in the blink of an eye. A quick call to Time Force's central computer via his wrist comm. confirmed that not only was he in the right place, but also the right time. He breathed a sigh of relief. For all the certainty he'd expressed to Lucas, he had been doubtful all the same, given how far The Master seemed to have planned this whole mess. "But then again," he muttered, "The Master is arrogant enough to figure I wouldn't be a factor."

He ran his fingers through his hair and frowned. "First things first," he decided. "If I'm going to beat a conspiracy, I'm going to need some co-conspirators."

_TO BE CONCLUDED…_


	10. Morph

Morph

"So that's what I know," Alex finished to a select audience in the confines of his office. Rob Logan was actually present, while Ven Evore was listening on a secure holo-screen link.

It was Ven who was first to speak. "It sounds hideous," she admitted, shaking her head, "but I'm not sure I can help you. I'm up here in Manitoba, and you're lucky you caught me at all. We've got chaos on our hands."

Momentarily forgetting his own problems, Alex said, "Why? What's happening?"

"Some bunch of mutants is on the rampage. We picked them up from the Moscow branch when they came up over the pole."

Something about Ven's words struck a chord. "That's it," he mumbled.

"Alex," said Rob dispassionately, "you're not making any sense – as usual."

Alex shook his head, trying to dispel the feeling of impending dread. "No, I'm not. But I think I've got it figured." To Ven he said, "Something that came up in the explanations: I 'die' facing down some criminals from this time who wind up in 2002."

"You think this is them?" Ven asked.

Alex shrugged. "I got the impression it all went down…will go down – God, I hate temporal mechanics, it gives me a headache – very soon. Unless there's something else out there, it seems to fit."

Ven looked grim. "There's no way we can stop them up here. We just aren't equipped, and they make Ransik look like a kindergarten teacher."

Rob winced. "And we know how well that went."

"They're heading south," Ven continued, ignoring Rob's comment, "based on what we can track, and from what we know, you're gonna have a tough time stopping 'em down there, even with TF Tech's help."

Alex nodded. "That would be how they land up in 2002." He rubbed a hand over his face and nodded again. "You'd better go, Ven. If they're that big a threat, you're going to be needed."

"Thanks." The grim expression on Ven's face lifted briefly. "Good luck." Then the holo-screen connection cut.

"So, what's the plan?" Rob asked.

"I don't know," Alex admitted. "I'm still not sure why you would tag me with a temporal transponder in the first place."

"Because, frankly, in the last year or so, you've had a death wish," Rob answered bluntly. "At a guess I chose – or would have done – to do it because I figured you weren't looking out for yourself."

"Well you can rule that out," said Alex. "It's not gonna be that way."

"Isn't it?" Rob lifted his eyebrows in a sceptical fashion. "You're suddenly not bothered by being Wes Collins' descendant?"

Alex snorted. "I didn't say that." He sighed. "I promised Wes – that Wes at any rate – that this time would be different. And that means no more copping out from me." Rob said nothing and said it pointedly. "All right. OK. Quit it. If I wanted 'I told you so', I could call up Ven again. She's got them down to a science." Rob grinned. "So what do we do?"

"Actually," Rob answered thoughtfully, "the answer's simple. We do what we did. But differently."

÷

Alex hurried across the Quadrangle towards the Supreme Court just as the lunch recess was called. There was little he could do about the future for now; changing the future required the right moment and, as Rob had pointed out, that wouldn't come for a week or so yet. Which left him scrambling to concentrate on the here and now, and, in particular, Merle Askot's trial. As he mounted the steps of the court building, though, he met Katie and Wes coming down them.

"Where the hell have you been?" Wes demanded.

For a second, Alex flashed on Wes' counterpart in that ruined future and felt relief at seeing Wes' face unlined and youthful. "Sorry; been a nightmare of a morning."

"You do realise it's Jen's testimony today?" Katie asked.

"I do; I've been hung up trying to get a handle on some temporal mechanics," Alex replied with a grimace. The best part of that statement was it was completely true, he reflected, it just wasn't the whole truth. Katie winced. "How's it going?"

"Carmen was being an ass over the whole thing," said Wes. "I'm guessing that's not news."

"Not exactly." They started to walk towards the new bagel stand on the Quadrangle. "How was van Zyl fighting it?"

"Pretty well," Katie answered. "Until he called for recess. That was weird."

"Oh?" To the blue-skinned Duros who was running the stall, Alex said, "Cream-cheese salad bagel, please."

"You want, you got," the Duros answered, grinning toothily. "And you others?"

"Plain for me," said Wes.

"And me," said Katie.

"Comin' up."

As the Duros went to work on the order, Alex said, "So? What happened?"

"Well, Carmen was into his cross examination," said Katie, "and he pulled the whole 'since you and Wes are two different people, Chrissy Lithgow and Jen Scotts must be, too' thing, which we all knew he'd pull."

"Thanks," said Wes and accepted the plain bagel the Duros was holding out to him. "van Zyl objected, and then withdrew it and asked for a recess."

"Thanks," said Alex, exchanging some credit chips for the heavily loaded bagel the Duros was proffering.

"Name's Zek," the Duros answered. "Accla maz'ni."

Alex nodded. "Accla maz'ni." To Wes and Katie, he said, "Was that the end of proceedings?"

"Yup." Katie nodded and took a bite out of her bagel.

"Good," said Alex.

"Good?" Wes echoed. "How can it be good?"

Alex grinned. "As you said; we guessed Carmen would pull that line of interrogation, because it was something we couldn't prove, thanks to not being able to bring Rocky and his year book forward." He sat down on one of the many public benches on the Quadrangle. "After we had that particular discussion, though, I had an idea about how van Zyl could counter it." He took a bite from his bagel and realised, for the first time, just how hungry he actually was.

"Which was…?" Wes prompted.

Alex chewed his mouthful and swallowed before answering, "There's a way to recover old memories, in a case where someone was memory adapted. It's not a complicated process, but unless it's required, it's not done so that people don't end up with dual memories for events."

"And they're going to do that to Jen?" asked Wes.

Alex took another bite from his bagel and shrugged. "That's my guess."

"Will you be in court for this afternoon's session?" Katie asked.

Alex frowned. There were all those reports that Civ-Ad wanted him to complete; that had been what he'd intended to do before The Master had intervened. He ought to do them. Then again, this was Jen's day on the Witness stand and as her commanding officer, he ought to be there. _Civ-Ad can wait,_ he decided. "Of course."

÷

Alex glared at the general contents of his desk with complete disgust. It seemed as if leaving Civ-Ad reports for a week only caused them to breed, and yet, there hadn't been anything else he could do. The court case had required his attention, and that hadn't been the only thing: The trio of mutants had been steadily working their way south, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. They were still TF Crime's case, but one of the tracking units had noticed a pattern to the mutants' movements that seemed to correlate to previous temporal anomalies and naturally occurring time holes, which suggested that sooner or later, they'd become a matter for TF Covert Ops. Unfortunately, Civ-Ad had caught up with him that afternoon and demanded he give their reports some attention. So here he was, at nine o'clock in the evening, the night before the verdict came back on Covert Ops' first case, filling out records to say how many cups of coffee the department drank in a week and how many accidental blaster discharges there'd been in the past month.

"All work and no play makes Alex a very dull boy," remarked a voice from his office doorway.

Alex looked up to see Katie grinning at him. "And if he doesn't finish these reports, Civ-Ad will make Alex a very dead boy," he shot back, smiling faintly.

Katie winced. "Are they really being that bad?"

"I've been putting these reports off for more than a week," Alex replied. "The least they want to do is kill me."

"Ouch." Katie took up a seat. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

It was on the tip of Alex's tongue to say no. Then it occurred to him to wonder why Katie had come looking for him. "You didn't come here to help me with Civ-Ad reports."

"Well, no," Katie admitted, a sheepish smile on her face. "When you didn't show up at Trip and Nadira's party, Captain Logan was a little concerned."

"Trip and Nadira's party?" Alex blinked. "Is that tonight?"

Katie nodded. "Uh-huh."

Alex clapped a hand to his head and groaned. "I'd completely forgotten."

"Clearly," said Katie dryly. "And we all know Civ-Ad reports are far more interesting than celebrating your friends' engagement."

"Believe me, I'd rather be shot multiple times than do these reports," Alex retorted. "I swear, I have no idea why they want to know this stuff."

"Well, anyway," Katie continued, waving off his comment, "Captain Logan was concerned so I volunteered to come look for you."

Alex blushed. _I quit drinking ten years ago, and Rob still thinks he's gonna find me face down in the gutter._ "Should I ask where Rob suggested you look?"

"Well here, obviously," Katie answered. "Your apartment for another."

"He didn't suggest any bars?"

Katie's eyes widened. "Bars? Why should he have done that?"

"It's a long story," said Alex.

"Oh, I have time," Katie replied, leaning forwards and propping her chin on her hands. "I'm betting it's an interesting one."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Depends how you define interesting." Katie just looked expectant. "I had some problems, back when I was in the academy. I turned to drink."

"Oh, my." In an instant, Katie was around the desk and had put her arms around him in a tight hug. "You don't have to say any more; it's none of my business."

Alex smiled faintly. "It's OK. I'm OK; I had friends who stuck by me, straightened me out. Rob was one of them. And every now and then, if I forget I'm supposed to be doing something, like going to Trip and Nadira's party, he worries I've fallen off the wagon." His smile turned self-depreciatory. "He just hasn't figured out yet that I've replaced one addiction with another; instead of drink, it's work."

Katie gave a hiccup of laughter. "You're not a workaholic."

"I'm not so far from it," he retorted. "Witness me being here at long gone nine o'clock in the evening."

"Well we can fix that," said Katie firmly. "You tell me what I can do to help, we'll avoid your untimely death at the hands of Civ-Ad and then we can go and have some fun, with our friends."

"That sounds like a plan." Suddenly, Alex understood just how his future-self had ended up married to Katie. She would be able to help him find a balance. "Maybe, when the court case is over, we could go out. For a coffee?"

Katie, who was just on the point of returning to her seat froze. "Alex, are you actually asking me out?"

"I know, my timing stinks; it usually does. But, yeah, if you're interested."

Katie smiled. "I'd like that."

÷

Alex slid behind his desk and sat down. "Come in," he said to both Jen and Wes, who were hovering in the doorway. "And sorry about the mess. Katie and I were here until late last night trying to sort out statistics for Civ-Ad and, what with being grabbed by Hawking first thing and then having to be at the Supreme Court by nine this morning and everything else, I haven't had a chance to tidy up yet."

"Clearly," said Wes.

Jen chuckled. "Are you sure this mess is just from your stats gathering?"

Alex just rolled his eyes. "Take a seat," was all he said.

"Are you going to tell us about Eric?" Wes asked.

"No, I'm going to leave you worrying about it until you get back," Alex retorted sarcastically.

Wes shrugged a little. "There are rules and regs about how much we can know, aren't there?"

"There are," Alex agreed. "But they're also entirely moot, since you live in that time period. It'd be different if I was briefing Lucas or Trip for a mission there."

"So, you said it was good news," Jen prompted.

"It is," Alex agreed. "Hawking informs me that the timeline has stabilised and destiny force has been rendered inactive. Which means," he added, before Wes could ask, "that everything's settled down and is back to normal. The pre-Biocon timeline's been restored and Eric is fine. A little banged around, but otherwise OK."

The remaining tension in Wes and Jen's expressions bled away at this news. "He's really OK?" Jen asked.

Alex smiled. "I think he's probably better than OK," he said. "I do know more, but honestly? It's his news, not mine."

Wes groaned. "You do realise getting information out of Eric's almost as bad as getting a straight answer out of you?"

Alex grinned. "Trust me, he'll want to share this."

"That'll be a first," Wes muttered.

"So, it's all over," said Jen thoughtfully. "You did promise us some explanations. Particularly about why you acted like a complete jerk on your first trip to the twenty-first century."

Alex nodded. "I know." He sighed. "I said, at the time, that the future was shifting."

"And yet the only changes to the timeline was a book of bad poetry and a line of children's toys," said Jen.

"That's because the shift wasn't down to anything you'd done; it was my fault," Alex admitted.

Wes and Jen exchanged looks. "This should be good," Wes murmured.

Alex hesitated for a moment. Future-Wes had told him that he and Jen didn't need to hear everything in this meeting, the question was, how to explain? "When I came round, after Ransik's attack, everything seemed to be fine. Temporal was keeping an eye on the situation, making sure the timeline wasn't too strained by so much futuretech in the wrong place, and there didn't seem to be any point to my distracting you. I don't know if that was the right decision or not," he admitted. "It also wasn't really my decision: Temporal all but ordered me not to."

"Wow; that's cold," said Wes, shaking his head.

"It's Alex all over," said Jen a little bitterly, "putting the mission over personal feelings."

Alex winced. "Jen, you weren't the only person who hurt from that. I didn't like it, at all. But tell me this; what would you have done, if you'd known I was alive?"

Jen opened her mouth to reply. The closed it again, frowning. "I don't know," she finally said.

"Would you have been so focussed?" Wes wondered.

"I don't know," Jen repeated. "So why did you come to 2001?" she asked.

"Something Steelix did started Destiny Force," Alex answered. "It took Temporal a couple of days to figure out what it was."

"And what was it?" asked Wes.

Alex grimaced. There was no easy way to say this. "You and Jen weren't together any more."

Wes and Jen both stared, wide-eyed. "Excuse me, what?" said Jen, astounded.

Alex sighed. "As it's turned out, you were never supposed to have been here. You were supposed to grow up in twentieth century Angel Grove, go to college, meet Wes, fall in love, have a family…the whole fairytale romance thing. We know that now, because of Biocon and Merle Askot and unravelling the whole Shendraville story." Jen nodded grudgingly. "But, just because we didn't know that before it all unravelled, it didn't mean it didn't still apply."

"So, you're saying you had to go back to 2001 and play **matchmaker**?" said Wes incredulously.

"Not exactly matchmaker," Alex replied. "Just make it so that you and Jen becoming a couple wasn't completely impossible."

"So you turned yourself into a grade A jerk?" Jen slowly shook her head.

"What other alternative was there?" Alex asked. "I mean, I guess I could have locked you in a room until you kissed. Or maybe I could have ordered you to kiss. Something tells me you wouldn't have appreciated that, either."

Jen looked down. "There had to be a better way."

"You've no idea how many times I've thought that," said Alex. "But there it is. That's why I did it."

"And telling me about my dad served exactly what purpose?" Wes asked.

"Beyond proving my jerk qualifications?" Alex sighed. "It proved I had knowledge of what was going to happen. And for what it's worth, I know my tactics were about as low as they could be. I wish I'd been able to figure out a better way of doing it."

Wes shook his head. "Wow."

"If all that was to get me and Wes together," said Jen, "why was I allowed to come back to this time, after Ransik was captured?"

"I don't know," Alex replied. "I wasn't involved in that decision. Seeing as Nidia Nechev was involved with Jack Scotts, and head of Temporal at the time, Biocon probably had some bearing on that. Only she'd know for sure."

"And she's batshit insane," Jen finished. "I'm never going to know."

Alex shrugged. "Probably not."

"And where does my diary fit into this?" Wes asked.

"What diary?" Jen looked puzzled.

"It's a family heirloom," said Alex. "It was DNA encoded, so I'd be the only person to read it. In it, Wes wrote – will write – a bunch of advice. There was nothing specific about what would happen, but a lot of little hints." He smiled faintly. "Like: Wear extra armour when you face Ransik. And: If I argue about sending Jen and the team back, don't let me; the only way the megazord can help us is if they pilot it back." It was, he reflected, not quite the truth, but he guessed this, in particular, was what Future-Wes had been talking about. After all, what good did it do telling Jen he'd known she was his ancestor when they first met?

"That sounds like something I'd do," Wes observed.

"Why didn't you explain about the megazord?" Jen asked.

Alex shrugged again. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." He smiled faintly. "I think we've already established I'd be happy to do that whole mess over again."

There was a few moments of silence, then Wes said, "So what happens now?"

"Hopefully," Alex answered, "you and Jen go home in a couple of days' time and we can all get on with normal life."

"Why hopefully?" asked Jen.

Alex sighed. "There's something that might come up. It's still a TF Crime case at the moment, but that may change. And if it changes, well, all hell will break loose. Again."

÷

_All hell breaking loose might just be an understatement,_ Alex decided as he looked around his office at those gathered. He'd been out, with Katie, enjoying their date, when the call had come through that the mutants had left this century. And despite knowing it had been going to happen, Alex still found himself surprised. "I know it's short notice, but thank you for coming."

"What's happened?" Lucas asked.

"TF Crime have been tracking a trio of mutants across most of the known world," Alex answered. "At nineteen hundred, local time, the trio vanished through a time hole, dropping the whole sorry mess in our laps."

"This is what you thought might come up," Wes guessed.

"Got it in one." Alex nodded. "And it gets worse, too. Dr Bennett?"

Dr Bennett, the head of the technical department nodded. "Simply put: They're not standard – if there is such a thing – mutants. They're mutations of some as yet unknown non-humanoid life form. None of our existing weaponry has any effect on them, and that includes the weaponry from the Ranger program."

"So, what you're saying," said Jen, "is we don't know what they are, we don't know when they are and if we find them, we can't do anything to bring them in, either."

"That's about the size of it," Alex replied grimly.

"Oh brother," said Wes shaking his head. "It doesn't get any better."

"Welcome to Time Force," quipped Lucas. "Endless periods of boredom punctuated by occasional bursts of completely insane terror."

"We do," said Alex, giving Lucas a glare, "have a plan of action. Nadira – you still have contacts in Forgotten District," she nodded, "I need you to speak to them, and very probably your father too. See if anyone knows anything." She nodded again. "Trip, Marissa, you along with Rob and whoever it is from the Moscow office need to go over every scrap of data we have on these criminals. There has to be something in there that will give us a clue as to what or who they are." They nodded. "Lucas, I have a brief errand for you to run, then you're liasing with Dr Bennett's team. I'll be liasing with Director Hawking's team, who're trying to pin down when, exactly, these mutants have landed." Alex paused and looked at Wes and Jen. "Wes, Jen – you'll be our recon. team, and you'll be setting off in half an hour."

"Makes sense," said Jen, nodding.

"Dr Bennett has equipment for you, to make your job a little easier, and Lucas will be contacting Eric to warn him you're probably going to be delayed returning."

"That would be the errand you want me to run," Lucas guessed.

Alex nodded. "Got it in one. Lastly, because there's essentially going to be no-one in this office to report to, Katie's agreed to sign on as Civ-Ad for Covert Ops. She'll be our point of contact." Katie gave a nod, but said nothing. "Any questions?" Silence. "Then let's get this show on the road."

÷

"This is the situation," Dr Bennett explained as Alex took a seat. "With what we now know, and the help of Cadet Williams, I can develop a neutralising agent that will reverse the mutation."

Alex nodded slowly. "Nadira's presumably happy to help?"

Lucas chuckled. "She all but begged to the moment Dr Bennett said she would need a DNA extract."

Alex smiled faintly. Nadira was rapidly growing up and was determined to prove something good had ultimately come from Ransik's activities. "All right," he said. "So we have a neutralising agent. How do we get it to the Mutorgs?"

"You have two choices," Dr Bennett replied. "I can either embed it in a form of explosives, which would work for a long-range, targeted release. Or, I can develop a gas bomb, which would be close-range."

Alex frowned. "I can't guarantee we can set up an ambush," he mused.

"That's true," Lucas agreed. "And would you want an explosion on a site like Rancho Diablo?"

"No," said Dr Bennett. "Too much risk of a chain reaction."

"Gas bombs, then," said Alex nodding. "And it had better be in the plural. We'll be splitting up to cover the ground."

Dr Bennett nodded. "I can have them ready within the hour. One thing," she added. "You'll need to make sure that anyone armed with one is prepared to teleport away the second it detonates."

"Is it toxic?" Lucas asked.

"It shouldn't be, unless you happen to be a Mutorg," Dr Bennett answered. "But I think we'd all rather not find out for sure."

÷

As the sun rose over the Animarium, Alex was still not sure how best to deal with the gas bombs. He had wanted Rob to travel back with them, in addition to everyone else, but the Bigwigs had denied his request, leaving his team short of Rob's expertise in mission surveillance.

"Earth to Alex," Katie interjected. "We need your thoughts. There's eight of us for clearing the site, and four of Doc Bennett's gas bombs."

"Four pairs, then," Alex decided.

"And didn't you say someone was going to have to stay here and keep an eye on things?" Taylor asked.

Ben snorted. "The answer to that's obvious." He jerked his head in the direction of Eric who, thanks to his status as just barely out of plaster, was disqualified from taking part in the operation. "He can't run shit for nothing, but I'd bet my last buck he'd be able to do the surveillance stuff."

Alex grinned. Ben was right, the answer was obvious. "I should have thought of that sooner, Ben; you're right."

"Yo, boss! Get your butt over here and be useful," Ben called.

÷

"The reactor's secured," Katie reported as she and Alex picked their way through the western quadrant of the Rancho Diablo site.

Alex smiled in terse relief. "That's half the job done." _I'll feel better when we've found the Mutorgs._ He had a nasty suspicion that it would be the other way around, though. Namir had been specific about how he was supposed to have died: In an explosion. It was one reason he'd opted for the gas bombs, even with the inherent dangers. There was only one reason he could imagine being at stupidity central when the plastique detonated, and that was as a result of an ambush.

"It's kinda weird we haven't seen any Putrids over here, though," Katie continued. "The rest of the site's crawling with them."

A sinister, female laugh filled the air, preventing Alex from making any response. He felt the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end. He knew that laugh.

"You didn't really think," said a voice, "that Time Force could lock me away?"

_It can't be…_ Slowly, Alex turned to face the direction the voice was coming from. "Arachna."

The female mutant spy smiled. "Not just Arachna, now, Major," she spat. "I have some new friends." And almost as if by magic, the three Mutorgs materialised on cue to surround them.

"Oh holy hell..." Katie mumbled.

"It looks like we win," said Master Org, coming to stand beside Arachna. "And you were so easy to distract," Master Org gloated. "So willing to be credulous."

"And I thought you were the intelligent one," Arachna snorted.

Alex said nothing. He hated being right. It was only a matter of time before the other rangers realised there was something drastically wrong; he just hoped that would happen sooner rather than later.

"Not so cocky now," Arachna continued. "No threats this time? I'm disappointed."

"Life is full of disappointments," Alex answered.

The mutant spat at him. "I'm gonna enjoy ripping you limb from limb for what you did to Jack."

"Oh please." Alex snorted and rolled his eyes. "You're Biocon's revenge? I've had more threatening hot baths."

The Mutorg's blow was not unexpected, but it still sent him doubling over, winded and wheezing.

"You will pay," Arachna hissed. "You and Time Force and the rest of your pathetic race."

"No!"

Before Alex could say anything, Katie had launched herself at Arachna. The next moment seemed to unfold in complete slow motion. The Mutorg with the batwings – Kired, Alex thought – stepped in between Katie and Arachna. He caught Katie in mid-flight and to Alex's total horror, simply pivoted and flung her, like a rag-doll, towards one of the nearby storage bunkers. For a second, Alex thought Katie would actually hit the bunker, then she vanished and he allowed himself a moment of relief. She'd probably be pissed with Eric for intervening, but they could argue about that later.

"What!" Arachna was beyond angry at having her fun spoiled.

"What can I say?" Alex retorted. "Life really is full of disappointments."

"You have the man you came for," Master Org stated, giving Alex a flat glare. "I know that when you have finished, I will have what I came for."

"Thank you, Master Org," Arachna replied. "A pleasure doing business with you."

Master Org smiled. "Goodbye, Time Force Pest." And with that, the current Org leader teleported out.

"Talking's over," Arachna stated, even before Master Org had fully left. "You can't win. You're pathetic, weak and outnumbered."

Alex grinned ferally as his fingers closed around the gas bomb. "I'd agree on the outnumbered. But the rest – you only wish." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wes and Cole arriving from the south, with Taylor and Ben close on their heels. "I've told you before. I don't like people trying to kill me or mine." _I hope this works._ With that last thought, he dived towards Arachna and flung the bomb hard at the ground in one smooth move. As the bomb casing shattered, he grabbed hold of the silver-haired mutant in a flying tackle that took them both off their feet.

It was only when a streak of yellow energy narrowly missed him and hit Arachna, stunning her, that Alex was actually aware of no longer being at Rancho Diablo. He'd done it. Relief left Alex sprawled where he'd landed, half on top of the stunned mutant.

"I need a vacation," he murmured. "A very long vacation."


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue

"Alice c'mon; get your butt in gear or I'll go without you!"

Alice heard her father holler up the stairs and jumped. She'd been sunk deep in the book she was reading and hadn't been aware of the time passing. She now looked at the clock and realised that if she wasn't careful, they'd all be late. "You wouldn't dare!" she yelled back, rolling off her bed and hurriedly getting changed.

"Don't try me," came the response.

Alice snickered. When it came to her dad, she knew full well that she had him wrapped around her little finger, but just occasionally, he'd put his foot down and down it stayed. She put the finishing touches to her outfit and dashed down the stairs to find her father rather pointedly looking at his watch.

"We'll be late," he said.

"Not the way you drive," Alice shot back. "Besides, it's only the brats birthday – I'm sure they don't care if I'm there or not."

"Maybe they will and maybe they won't," retorted her father, "but your mother does. And if we're late…"

"She'll string us both up," Alice finished with a sigh. "All right, let's go." But for all her couldn't care less attitude, she was secretly looking forward to it. After all, it wasn't every day that she got to hang out with her parents' friends.

The park, as the only place for a bunch of ten-year-olds to run around without damaging anything, was their destination and true to Alice's predictions, they made it with plenty of time to spare. As Alice climbed out of the car, she could see her brevet uncle, Wes, playing referee to a horde of small boys who were tearing around after a soccer ball. She guessed that the birthday boys and her brother were in there somewhere, but from this distance, she couldn't tell.

"There you are!" Alice looked up to see her mother heading towards them.

"Don't blame me," said her father. "Blame your daughter."

"Oh, I know who to blame."

"Mom!" Alice rolled her eyes. "I'm not that bad."

"Sure you're not," her mother replied. "This way." And she led them towards a picnic blanket were a bunch of adults were seated in various comfortable poses.

"Eric – was beginning to think you weren't going to make it," observed one, a tall, dark-skinned woman wearing yellow. "And Alice, too. Good to see you again."

Alice grinned, even as her father repeated his excuse for their lateness. "Nice to see you again, too, Katie," she answered. "Where's Alex?"

Katie inclined her head in the direction of the would-be soccer players. "Helping your uncle keep track of things over there."

Sure enough, Alice spotted Alex, getting back to his feet. "He doesn't look as if he's doing so good."

Katie chuckled. "Don't let that fool you. Though he'll deny it if you ask him, he's having fun."

Alice giggled.

But no sooner had Katie said that than Alex came over to join them. "Ouf – who thought that was a good idea?" he groused, flopping down onto rug.

Katie rolled her eyes. "You're fooling no-one," she said. Alex grimaced at her. "You want a drink?"

"Please."

"Alice?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

Katie went over to where the picnic was being set out to find a drink.

"Have you figured out what you're gonna do when you graduate high school?" Alex asked.

Alice shook her head. "College, I guess," she answered.

"Have you thought about joining the Silver Guardians?" he asked.

"Over my dead body!" came the automatic response from Eric, breaking off the conversation he was having with Lucas and Rocky.

"Mine too!" Kimberly added.

"Me three," said Alice with a grin. "It's OK for dad and mom but I think I wanna do something where people aren't gonna try to kill me."

Alex laughed. Whether he would have said anything further or not Alice never learned as at that moment, the two birthday boys, Rick and Namir, came over and grabbed her hands.

"Y'gotta come play!" Rick demanded.

"Yeah!" Namir agreed, tugging. "It's a rule."

"You can be on John's team," Rick added kindly.

"All right, all right." Alice rolled her eyes. "I'm coming." And she allowed the two ten year olds to pull her to her feet.

Alex watched the trio join the soccer game and smiled. This was how it should have been.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Katie asked as she rejoined him.

"Just thinking."

"About?"

"The past, the present, the future." Alex grinned. "Stuff. You know."

"This had better not be work, Alex Collins," Katie warned, drink poised. "You promised, no work for the whole trip."

Alex grinned. "Old work."

"Then forget about it. Whatever it is it's over and done with now."

Alex nodded. "It certainly is."


End file.
